Xona Systems, a leading provider of secure access management solutions for critical infrastructure, is partnered with Barrier Networks, a managed security service provider for industrial organisations, to deliver a comprehensive, fully managed secure access solution for critical OT environments.
The partnership combines Xona’s cutting-edge secure access platform with Barrier’s deep operational cyber security expertise. It enables organisations across the UK to enhance the security of their endpoints within OT environments, meet regulatory compliance requirements, and simplify remote access management through an effortless, browser-based experience.
The collaboration provides operators of critical infrastructure with the expertise, technology and strategy needed to secure their environments while maintaining efficiency and operational resilience.
Better Together: The Joint Solution
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, critical infrastructure industries are more connected and complex than ever before. However, this connectivity brings significant risks as organizations face escalating threats to their operational technology (OT), industrial control systems (ICS), and IT environments. Traditional access methods like VPNs and jump servers fail to provide the necessary security, leaving critical systems exposed to ransomware, malware, and operational disruptions
Xona and Barrier Networks have joined forces to eliminate these challenges by offering a seamless, secure, and easy-to-deploy access solution that minimizes risk, ensures compliance, and optimizes operational efficiency.
Xona’s Role: Secure, Simple, and Scalable Remote Access for OT
The Xona Platform delivers secure access to critical infrastructure with features purpose-built to address the unique challenges of OT environments. Key capabilities include:
- Identity-Based Access Management – Ensures secure access for all users— onsite employees, remote workers, third-party vendors, and OEM partners—through role, identity, and time-based controls. Take back control of who, what, when, where, and how users can access critical systems.
- Disconnected Access – Helps eliminate 100% of insecure endpoints that connect to critical systems by isolating critical system protocols, such as RDP, SSH, and VNC, from untrusted, transient user endpoints.
- Seamless User Experience – A browser-based, clientless solution that simplifies remote access without requiring VPNs, agents, or plugins.
- Granular Audit, Governance, and Compliance – Real-time session logging, recording, and enforcement of identity-based security policies.
Barrier Networks: Delivering security and resilience to OT organisations
Barrier is an expert at helping industrial operators build cyber resilience and develop strategies to defend against cyber-attacks. Barrier understands the unique challenges of protecting OT environments and offers its clients comprehensive OT security services designed to safeguard critical infrastructure against evolving and sophisticated cyber threats while building security programmes that guarantee resilience and availability.
The new partnership will enable Barrier to bolster its services with Xona’s market leading secure access solutions, providing an essential layer of security to safeguard critical environments.
Combining Barrier’s vast presence in the UK’s industrial sector with Xona’s cutting-edge OT solutions, more critical organisations will be able to enhance their access security against internal and external threat actors, ensuring that even as OT environments digitally transform through advancements in automation, no endpoints or users are ever overlooked.
“Critical industry organisations are facing an increased risk of attack from cyber criminals and nation state adversaries, who are either financially motivated or want to cause harm to society. Access into these critical networks has become a growing concern, particularly as OT environments become increasingly connected, creating more entry points for attackers to exploit. Our new partnership with Xona will help tackle these issues, providing our customers with a secure access solution dedicated to complex OT environments,” said Ian McGowan, managing director of Barrier Networks.
As critical infrastructure industries face increasing digital threats and navigate an evolving regulatory landscape, secure, simple access solutions like Xona’s are more crucial than ever.
The platform secures critical OT, IT, and cloud environments and helps companies meet industry standards, including IEC 62443, the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), and NERC-CIP compliance requirements.
About Barrier Networks:
At Barrier, our mission is to help our customers build cyber resilience and develop strategies to defend against cyber attacks. We have created a portfolio of services and solutions that suit small and large customers in both the private and public sectors. Our portfolio encompasses the initial consultancy to identify the right strategy, to solutions from innovative vendors to mitigate attacks, through to managed services to detect attacks and provide incident response.
We have also built a practice dedicated to providing assurance that systems are resilient to attack. We provide penetration testing services to check the effectiveness of the deployed controls and vulnerability management to maintain resilience.
We aim to build trust and understanding of how our customers’ organisations function. Our work spans all sectors, with strong references in the Finance, Legal, HMG/MoD, and the Public Sector.
https://www.barriernetworks.com/
About Xona
Xona Systems is a leading provider of secure access solutions for critical systems and operational technology environments. By combining unmatched security with ease of deployment, Xona helps organisations reduce their attack surface and comply with industry regulations while offering the best user experience on the market. Trusted by industry leaders across energy, manufacturing, and utilities, Xona’s solutions protect critical systems around the world.
Originally published March 9, 2025, updated March 6, 2025.