Industrial security, from Pittsburgh.
MSS Works Industrial Security is the operating brand of MSS Works Industrial Telemetry & OT Security LLC. Founded in 2018, the company is based at 2400 Smallman St, Strip District, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. We focus on the networks and engineering workflows behind manufacturing, municipal water treatment, power substations, and other industrial operations where a digital instruction can change a physical process.
Our work centers on IEC 62443 zone and conduit segmentation, unidirectional data transfer, industrial protocol inspection, and managed OT security operations. Those disciplines belong together. Segmentation defines where a conversation may happen; protocol understanding explains what the conversation means; monitoring gives the operating team a way to notice when the established pattern changes. Each part needs a clear owner and a usable handover.
Gideon Mercer / Principal OT Security Engineer.
Gideon Mercer leads the engineering approach at MSS Works Industrial Security. His role is to connect a security requirement to a practical boundary, a testable control, and an operational decision. Architecture conversations begin with the people who understand the process: controls engineers, maintenance teams, operators, network staff, and the individuals accountable for production. The most useful discovery is often a dependency missing from the current drawing.
The field questions are concrete. Which workstation can download logic? What does the remote terminal do when its link fails? Can the line restart if a reporting server is unavailable? Who can approve emergency access during a night shift? The answers shape the design and its acceptance criteria. A security review should make those responsibilities more explicit rather than hiding them behind a product dashboard.
A method built for existing plants.
Brownfield systems deserve careful treatment. A controller may remain essential long after its original documentation or vendor support has become difficult to obtain. We review the existing communication paths, maintenance practices, recovery materials, and physical constraints before proposing a change. Passive observation helps establish a starting point without turning routine discovery into a series of untested requests against production equipment.
The next step is to agree on the boundary and its evidence. We specify required exchanges, identify unnecessary trust, and document how each proposed control will be tested. Local control behavior, failover, engineering access, and recovery all matter. The result should be understandable to the team that inherits it: a zone map, a conduit register, a known exception process, and a clear description of monitoring coverage.
Keep claims tied to what can be demonstrated.
A framework helps organize an assessment, but a framework reference does not certify a plant. A passive sensor can identify suspicious traffic, but it does not block a packet from a mirrored feed. A diode creates a one-way transmission boundary, but it does not make every connected system an air gap. We use precise language because imprecise language leads to operating assumptions that fail at the worst moment.
For the same reason, our public architecture briefs are marked as illustrative scenarios. Engagement scope, service coverage, access authority, and response commitments are established in writing. We do not ask an introductory visitor to submit controller backups or raw process captures through a website. Sensitive engineering material should move through a transfer method agreed with the customer and matched to the information involved.
Start with one boundary worth understanding.
If you are planning an industrial DMZ, reviewing a remote access path, or evaluating monitoring coverage, contact ops@mssworks.com. Describe the facility type, the operational problem, and any constraints on changes. For security coordination, use soc@mssworks.com. We can begin with a sanitized discussion of the process and define a suitable review from there, before requesting detailed diagrams or agreeing on access to production systems.