Ampex Data Systems has partnered with OPAL-RT TECHNOLOGIES, a Canadian company that is the world leader in the development of PC/FPGA-based real-time simulators, Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing equipment, and Rapid Control Prototyping (RCP) systems that are used to design, test, and optimize control and protection systems for power grids, power electronics, motor drives, automotive, trains, aircraft and various critical infrastructure industries.

BLUE Lightning, Ampex’s patented endpoint protection device, offers an innovative approach to cyber monitoring and defense. BLUE Lightning is specifically designed to protect control systems at the lowest levels of a control system network. It is different from any standard cyber protection tools; it is specifically designed to work on control system networks, down to the lowest sensor ingesting both serial and digital data sources and it does not rely on threat signatures for detection. It detects advanced threats and zero day threats with two patented algorithms designed to detect anomalous behavior with specific devices and the overall network.

BLUE Lightning protects factories, refineries, and infrastructure by integrating into each control element node, either in-line or in-parallel, to monitor the data from control system specific protocols.

OPAL-RT’s unique simulation products provide the ability to emulate and simulate any power system in the world, down to the transient level. In conjunction with BLUE Lightning, real control system architectures can be replicated with a customer’s actual hardware-in-the-loop to simulate live attack scenarios in a safe and secure environment for research and development, testing, training, system forensics, and rapid prototyping of evolving security solutions.

Within a model, BLUE Lighting can test a network without causing issues in a live system. Additionally, Ampex offers a Cyber and Electronic Analysis Development Integration Laboratory (CEADIL) to train operators on replicated networks, create cyber threat scenarios, and evaluate and improve SOP’s.