DeNexus expands cyber risk management capabilities to the physical security of data center facilities

DeNexus, a provider of end-to-end cyber risk management for operational technology (OT), today announced a key expansion of its cyber risk management solution, DeRISK, for data center facilities. This new capability models and quantifies physical-to-cyber risk, which occurs when an entity bypasses a data center facility's physical security to advance the objective of executing a cyber attack and supports the justification of both physical and cyber security investments for data centers.

Planning and forecasting security investments for existing and future data center facilities requires financial quantification of both physical and cyber risks. With this new capability, DeRISK's models capture the facility's physical security zones, the various access paths from zone to zone, the related physical access controls and their effectiveness, and the probability of a successful bypass that could result in a cyber event. With DeNexus, security leaders can understand physical and cyber exposures at their data center facilities, estimate the potential financial loss from a breach, and run "what-if" scenarios for various risk mitigation investments to strengthen physical and cyber defenses.

Managing cyber risk for the exploding data center market is top of mind for the technology industry. Driven by the rapid expansion of AI, global data center capacity is expected to double over the next five years, with hyperscalers estimated to increase annual spending by $48 billion in 2024, according to a recent report from Moody's Ratings.

"DeNexus is proud to be a pioneer helping organizations navigate the interconnected nature of physical and cyber security in data centers," said Jose Seara, CEO and founder of DeNexus. "This is paramount for protecting these cyber-physical assets, which are increasingly relied upon to power the digital economy and growing at an exponential rate fueled by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence."

"Security leaders often overlook physical data center security. In the 2024 AFCOM State of the Data Center Report, physical data center security broke into the Top Five Security Concerns. With AI, our industry is experiencing a generational shift in technology, usage, and adoption. It is crucial to understand the interconnection between physical and cyber risks today," stated Bill Kleyman, AFCOM Data Center World Program Chair and Data Center Knowledge Contributing Editor and CEO and Co-Founder of Apolo.us. "We commend DeNexus for their proactive approach in providing financial insights into the combined physical and cyber threats our global digital infrastructures face."

Working with early adopters of its data center cyber risk management solution, DeNexus will continue to develop advanced models that account for the interconnection between physical and cyber assets.

DeNexus will showcase its work on physical and cyber risk management at Data Center World in Washington, D.C., on April 14-17. 

This news closely follows DeNexus's $17.5M Series A funding round, which was announced in October. The company was also recently named the Most Innovative Cyber Risk Quantification solution in Cyber Defense Magazine's 2024 InfoSec Innovator Awards.