Machine Identity Protocol - Critical Infrastructure

Every
machine.
Blind. Spoofable. Unsigned. Exposed. Unverified.
Proven & secure.

Cryptera is the neutral trust layer for OT environments - machine identity and firmware integrity, verified independently of any vendor, working inside the air gap.

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0
Neutral machine identity protocols in existence
83%
OT attacks exploit vendor trust infrastructure
NIS2
EU mandate for software integrity - in force now
$85B
Critical infrastructure security market by 2030
Built on Ixian Network - Open Source DLT - Air-Gapped by Design - NIS2 Ready - UAE NCA Ready Vendor Programme open - Pilot from EUR 5K

A Siemens engineer ships a PLC firmware update. An operator installs it.

Nobody can prove the firmware is what Siemens says it is.

Nobody. Not Siemens. Not the operator. Not the regulator.

This is not a theoretical vulnerability. This is how every OT environment on Earth works today.

Act I - The Problem

Your machines have no passport. And no one is checking.

When a device arrives on a factory floor, a power substation, or a water treatment plant, there is no independent way to verify it is what the label says. The identity credential on that PLC was issued by the vendor who made it. The firmware signature was validated by the vendor who wrote it.

You are trusting a vendor to vouch for themselves. This is not carelessness. It is an architectural problem that nobody has solved - because solving it requires neutral infrastructure that no single vendor is motivated to build.

A $20 trillion global OT industry operating without a neutral trust layer.

In IT, this was solved decades ago. SSL. Certificate authorities. DNS. Neutral infrastructure nobody controls but everyone depends on.

OT has nothing equivalent. Until now.

// Why you should care · The key point

The Triton malware attack on a petrochemical plant in 2017 targeted safety instrumentation systems - not by exploiting a zero-day, but by leveraging trusted vendor update channels. Average detection time for OT breaches: 197 days.

Triton (2017) - Industroyer (2016) - PIPEDREAM (2022). Three generations. Same flaw.

Act II - The Forcing Function

Regulators have stopped waiting. Vendors are exposed.

NIS2 is just one example. Across the EU, the US, the Gulf, and APAC, regulators have stopped waiting for vendors to self-certify. Independent verification of software integrity is now the baseline - and the only question left is how operators prove it.

EU · In force

NIS2 Directive

Oct 2024 · Art. 21 · supply chain security obligations

Up to €10M / 2% turnover

EU · From 2027

Cyber Resilience Act

Manufacturer-side obligations for connected products

Up to €15M / 2.5% turnover

UAE · Now

NCA Tier 1 audits

Mandatory supply-chain audits for Tier 1 entities

Operating licence at risk

US · Enforced

NERC CIP firmware provenance

Grid operators must verify firmware origin & integrity

Up to $1M / day per violation

Prove what is running on your OT systems - independently, without asking the vendor. No current tool does this. Cryptera does.

Act III - The Infrastructure

We built the passport system. And the customs infrastructure.

Cryptera is not a security product bolted onto OT systems. It is a neutral protocol layer - like SWIFT for financial messaging, or DNS for internet addressing. It sits beneath the existing vendor ecosystem. Nobody controls it. Everyone benefits from it.

Every device issued into a Cryptera environment receives a cryptographic machine passport - a tamper-proof identity record anchored on the Ixian network, a distributed ledger designed from the ground up for air-gapped, internet-independent operation.

When a Siemens engineer ships a firmware update: the operator queries the neutral ledger. The signature matches or it doesn't. No vendor call. No internet dependency. No trust on faith.

// Why you should care

Traditional PKI has three structural problems in OT: internet required for validation, trust anchors controlled by vendors, no firmware integrity verification. Cryptera solves all three: works offline, vendor-neutral by architecture, firmware signing as a core primitive.

Ixian Network: open-source DLT, built for mesh networking, air-gapped by design.

CRYPTERA · MACHINE PASSPORT ✓ VERIFIED
DEVICESIEMENS · S7-1500 PLC
DIDdid:ixi:0x9F4A·C7B1·2E08
ISSUED2025-09-14 · Block #482,113
FIRMWAREsha256: e3b0c442·98fc1c14
LEDGERIxian · air-gapped
P<IXI<SIEMENS<<S71500<<<<<<<<<<<< 9F4AC7B12E08<5IXI2509143<<<<<<<0
✓NEUTRAL
LEDGER
// Six Problems. One Protocol.

What the world has. What Cryptera delivers.

197
Average days to detect an OT breach
$3M
Average production loss per OT incident
17B+
OT-connected devices. Zero neutral protocols.
Vendor-controlledNeutral identity

Machine identity today lives inside the vendor's own PKI. Cryptera moves identity to a neutral, decentralised ledger that no single vendor controls.

Firmware unverifiableFirmware proven

Operators have no independent means to verify firmware legitimacy. Cryptera makes every firmware release independently verifiable by any party, any time.

Internet-dependentAir-gapped verification

Traditional PKI validation requires internet connectivity. OT environments are air-gapped by design. Cryptera operates on Ixian - connectivity-independent.

Supply chain opaqueSupply chain transparent

NIS2, CRA, and UAE NCA mandate supply chain transparency. Cryptera creates the tamper-proof audit trail regulators demand - automatically.

Single point of failureDistributed trust

When a vendor's signing infrastructure is compromised, every downstream operator is exposed. Cryptera distributes trust - no single compromise cascades.

Compliance manualCompliance automatic

Proving OT supply chain compliance today requires manual processes. Cryptera generates tamper-proof compliance evidence at the protocol level - on demand.

What we actually fix

Identity is the root cause. Communication is the outcome.

Every credible attack on critical infrastructure exploits the same gap: a device that cannot prove who it is, talking to another device that cannot prove who it is. Fix identity, and every message that follows inherits trust.

// LAYER 01 · ROOT CAUSE

Machine Identity

A neutral passport for every device - issued, verified, and revoked independently of the vendor that made it. This is what's missing in OT today, and what every other security layer silently assumes exists.

  • Issued on a neutral ledger - no vendor PKI in the trust path
  • Verifiable offline, inside the air gap
  • Revocable without a firmware update or call-home
// LAYER 02 · OUTCOME

Trusted Communication

Once two devices can prove who they are, every packet between them is end-to-end signed and encrypted. Sensors, PLCs, gateways, and historians talk through their existing protocols - but messages cannot be read or forged by anyone in the middle.

  • End-to-end signed messages - tamper-evident in flight
  • Encrypted payloads - opaque to vendor, ISP, attacker
  • Replay-proof - every message bound to a verified identity

Identity without communication leaves the wire exposed. Communication without identity is just encryption between strangers. Cryptera ships both - because one without the other is not a trust layer.

Compatibility

Compatible with existing protocols and standards.

Cryptera does not replace what your plant already runs on. It sits underneath, signing and encrypting at the identity layer, so Modbus, OPC UA, IEC 61850, MQTT, DNP3, and PROFINET keep working - now with verifiable origins and unreadable payloads.

// SPEAKS NATIVELY
Modbus TCP OPC UA IEC 61850 MQTT DNP3 PROFINET EtherNet/IP CoAP BACnet CIP Security REST / HTTPS gRPC
01

Deploys on private networks

Designed for the air-gapped reality of OT. No cloud dependency, no outbound calls. Runs entirely on your isolated network - factory, substation, vessel, plant.

02

Wraps - never replaces

Existing PLCs, RTUs, sensors, HMIs, and historians keep their protocols. Cryptera adds verifiable identity and encrypted channels on top, with no rip-and-replace.

03

Messages stay opaque

Devices communicate over the protocols they already use - but the payloads cannot be decrypted by anyone outside the trusted pair. Not the vendor. Not the network operator. Not the attacker on the LAN.

04

Standards-aligned

Compatible with IEC 62443, NIST SP 800-82, NIS2 technical requirements, and the EU Cyber Resilience Act. Auditors recognise the primitives; operators recognise the protocols.

// The Protocol

Three layers. One neutral infrastructure.

No single point of control. No internet dependency. No vendor in the loop. Built on Ixian - the only DLT designed for air-gapped, internet-independent operation.

01
CRYPTERA · ID
0x9F4A·C7B1·2E08

Machine Passport Issuance

At manufacture or commissioning, every device receives a cryptographic identity issued to the Cryptera network - immutable, tamper-proof, vendor-independent. Not a certificate that can be revoked by the issuer. A passport.

Ed25519/ECDSA key generation with optional TPM binding. No internet required. No vendor in the loop.

02
FIRMWARE.HEX
e3b0c442
98fc1c14
9afbf4c8

Firmware & Software Verification

Every firmware release is signed on the Cryptera neutral ledger. Operators verify against that ledger - without routing trust through the vendor's own infrastructure.

The SolarWinds attack compromised a vendor's signing infrastructure. In a Cryptera environment, there is no vendor signing infrastructure to compromise.

03

Air-Gapped Continuity

Cryptera operates without internet dependency by architecture. In conflict, cyber attack, or infrastructure failure - when connectivity drops - every verification continues.

The infrastructure protecting critical systems cannot depend on the systems it protects.

// Real-World Scenario

Firmware update at a power substation - with and without Cryptera

✕

Without Cryptera

Siemens releases a firmware update. The operator downloads it from Siemens' portal. They verify the digital signature - using Siemens' own certificate infrastructure.

If Siemens' signing infrastructure has been compromised (as in SolarWinds-style attacks), the signature passes. The malicious firmware installs.

The operator has no independent check.

✓

With Cryptera

Siemens signs the firmware release on the Cryptera neutral ledger at time of publication. The operator downloads the update. Before installation, they query the Cryptera network - offline, inside the air gap.

The ledger confirms: firmware hash matches. Signature valid. Issuer authenticated. No vendor infrastructure touched.

Independent verification. Air-gapped. Vendor-neutral. Tamper-proof.

Neutral trust
starts here.

Join the operators, vendors, and regulators building the trust infrastructure that critical systems deserve.

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