The Underwriters Laboratories — the safety organization that tests and certifies appliances for electrical safety — has launched its new SafeCyber Digital Security Platform to secure connected devices.

The SafeCyber platform is a suite of solutions designed to help device manufacturers, suppliers, and system integrators to mitigate the growing volume of cybersecurity threats against connected devices. The platform will also provide these organizations with tools to navigate increased regulatory scrutiny over smart home devices, sophisticated medical devices, advanced automotive systems, and Industry 4.0 technology.

The Maturity Path capability is a solution from UL that provides device manufacturers, suppliers, and system integrators with a maturity assessment for connected device security to build sustainable product security governance and processes, according to UL’s announcement.

UL also announced Firmware Check and Field Monitoring capabilities within SafeCyber to provide stakeholders with a security check on firmware implementations and allow organizations to perform security checks on firmware already deployed in the field. These capabilities will deliver detailed reporting on firmware security, such as software composition analysis and software bill of materials’ known vulnerabilities and exposures as well as unknown vulnerabilities, and will also provide compliance analysis against supported standards and guidelines, according to UL.

Collectively, these capabilities will allow organizations to manage cybersecurity governance and processes as well as speed up time spent developing firmware and addressing vulnerabilities. These capabilities are already available to SafeCyber customers, and UL says it plans to build upon and expand the platform in 2022.

"SafeCyber helps organizations holistically understand and assess risk, allowing both new and existing assets to be designed and maintained to conform with the latest cybersecurity legislation and best practices," Jukka Makinen, managing director of the Identity Management and Security division at UL, said in a press release.

Read more about UL's SafeCyber platform here.