Pike Pulse Report: Smart Grid Cyber Security Threat Management

• Publication date: January 2011

Assessment of Strategy and Execution for 15 Leading Cyber Security Vendors Smart grid cyber security remains a nascent market. The competitive landscape has established smart grid specialists, niche players, and well-known enterprise security vendors lumbering onto the field. While cyber security is often considered a mature market, this corner – smart grid cyber security – is not mature at all. The leaders that we identify in t...

Assessment of Strategy and Execution for 15 Leading Cyber Security Vendors

Smart grid cyber security remains a nascent market. The competitive landscape has established smart grid specialists, niche players, and well-known enterprise security vendors lumbering onto the field. While cyber security is often considered a mature market, this corner – smart grid cyber security – is not mature at all. The leaders that we identify in this analysis are well positioned for today’s market but some of the large corporations entering the scene can shape a market to their own liking. The three Leaders include one household name and two that are known only inside their own industry. That is an accurate summary of this market. For the moment, size and scale appear to be somewhat of a disadvantage. Specialist companies have fared well. The ability to quickly react to the market has prevailed so far, but it is by no means certain that large size will remain a disadvantage in the future. There is much yet to be decided.

Some trends in the smart grid industry may cause significant change during the coming twelve months. Chief among those, utilities are making it clear that they see the most meaningful ROI in distribution automation, not in smart metering. Smart grid vendors, and therefore security vendors as well, are beginning to hear and process that message. The Leaders in our ranking already have done that.
This Pike Research report evaluates 15 of the leading cyber security threat management vendors in the smart grid market and rates them on 12 criteria for strategy and execution, including vision, go-to-market strategy, partnerships, product strategy and roadmap, technical innovation, geographic reach, market share, sales and marketing, product performance and features, product portfolio, control system focus, and staying power. Using Pike Research’s proprietary Pike Pulse methodology, vendors are profiled, rated, and ranked with the goal of providing industry participants with an objective assessment of these companies’ relative strengths and weaknesses in the emerging smart grid cyber security threat management marketplace.
-Top 10 Vendors:

1. Industrial Defender
2. IBM
3. NitroSecurity
4. Cisco
5. Byres Security Inc.
6. McAfee
7. Symantec
8. HP
9. RSA
10. AlienVault
-Key Questions Addressed:

-Which cyber security threat management vendors are best positioned to survive and succeed?
-Which security vendors were earliest to understand where the market would go?
-Which security vendors have the broadest product lines and visions?
-Which security vendors are the strongest financially?
-How well do security vendors market their products and form partnerships?

-Who needs this report?

-Utilities
-Cyber security software vendors and service providers
-Smart meter / AMI vendors
-Control system vendors
-Systems integrators
-Professional services firms
-Government agencies
-Investor community

Global Security Systems Industry

Table of Contents


1.      Executive Summary
1.1  Introduction

2.      Market Overview
2.1  Market Definition
2.1.1    Smart Grid Market Segments
2.2  Smart Grid Market Drivers
2.3  Smart Grid Cyber Security Overview
2.3.1    Threat Management Scope
2.3.2    Cyber Security Market Trends

3.      The Pike Pulse
3.1  Pike Pulse Grid
3.2  Company Rankings
3.2.1    Leaders
3.2.1.1    Industrial Defender
3.2.1.2    IBM
3.2.1.3    NitroSecurity
3.2.2    Contenders
3.2.2.1    Cisco
3.2.2.2    Byres Security
3.2.2.3    McAfee
3.2.2.4    Symantec
3.2.2.5    Hewlett-Packard
3.2.2.6    RSA
3.2.2.7    AlienVault
3.2.2.8    Sophos
3.2.2.9    AlertEnterprise
3.2.2.10  Sourcefire
3.2.2.11  Innominate
3.2.3    Challengers
3.2.3.1    N-Dimension

4.      Vendor Profiles
4.1  Leaders
4.1.1    Industrial Defender
4.1.2    IBM
4.1.3    NitroSecurity
4.2  Contenders
4.2.1    Cisco
4.2.2    Byres Security
4.2.3    McAfee
4.2.4    Symantec
4.2.5    HP
4.2.6    RSA
4.2.7    AlienVault
4.2.8    Sophos
4.2.9    AlertEnterprise
4.2.10  Sourcefire
4.2.11  Innominate
4.3  Challengers
4.3.1    N-Dimension
4.4  Followers

5.      Company Directory

6.      Acronym and Abbreviation List

7.      Table of Contents

8.      Table of Charts and Figures

9.      Methodology
9.1  Scope of Study
9.2  Sources and Methodology
9.2.1    Vendor Selection
9.2.2    Ratings Scale
9.2.2.1    Score Calculations
9.2.3    Criteria Definitions
9.2.3.1    Strategy
9.2.3.2    Execution

List of Charts and Figures

The Pike Pulse Grid
Cumulative Smart Grid Cyber Security Revenue by Segment, World Markets: 2011-2018
The Pike Pulse Grid
Industrial Defender Strategy & Execution Scores
IBM Strategy & Execution Scores
NitroSecurity Strategy & Execution Scores
Cisco Strategy & Execution Scores
Byres Security Strategy & Execution Scores
McAfee Strategy & Execution Scores
Symantec Strategy & Execution Scores
HP Strategy & Execution Scores
RSA Strategy & Execution Scores
AlienVault Strategy & Execution Scores
Sophos Strategy & Execution Scores
AlertEnterprise Strategy & Execution Scores
Sourcefire Strategy & Execution Scores
Innominate Strategy & Execution Scores
N-Dimension Strategy & Execution Scores

List of Tables

Vendor Overall Scores
Cumulative Smart Grid Cyber Security Revenue by Segment, World Markets: 2011-2018
Vendor Scores
Vendor Scores on Strategy Criteria
Vendor Scores on Execution Criteria