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Dragos’s Community Defense Program (CDP) offers qualifying U.S. and Canadian water, electric, and natural-gas utilities free access to OT cybersecurity software and related services. Eligibility is not automatic: providers must meet the program’s revenue and ownership criteria and receive approval. “Free” also does not cover every implementation cost—participants need suitable hardware, internet connectivity for Neighborhood Keeper, and staff skills to deploy the technology.
What the Dragos Community Defense Program includes
The current Dragos Community Defense Program page lists free access to the Dragos Platform, which provides operational technology (OT) asset visibility and inventory, threat detection, and vulnerability management. The package also includes:
- Neighborhood Keeper: Membership in Dragos’s collective-defense community, which provides shared threat visibility.
- Threat hunting: Dragos says participant telemetry is automatically analyzed by its threat hunters.
- OT-CERT membership: Access to Dragos’s OT cybersecurity community.
Dragos’s December 2023 expansion announcement also described network monitoring and Dragos Academy training as part of the offering at that time. The current program page is the better guide to benefits presently listed, so confirm training availability with Dragos rather than assuming it is included for every applicant. The 2023 announcement reported that OT-CERT had more than 1,500 members in 60 countries; that is a dated, company-reported membership count, not a measure of CDP results.
Who may qualify
According to Dragos’s current program page, applicants must be U.S.- or Canada-based water, electric, or natural-gas utilities. The page also says the utility must not be owned by a parent company whose annual revenue exceeds US$100 million. The registration page describes the intended audience as cooperatives and utility providers under the same threshold.
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Because ownership structures and revenue can be complicated, ask Dragos to confirm how the criteria apply to your organization before treating it as eligible. Dragos’s older U.S. expansion announcement used slightly different wording for the threshold; the current program page should guide applicants now.
CDP eligibility is narrower than general OT-CERT membership. OT-CERT says its membership is open to organizations that own, operate, or directly work in OT environments, while excluding cybersecurity vendors and consultancies that sell security products or services. That broader community description does not remove CDP’s utility, geography, and revenue requirements. See Dragos OT-CERT for its membership scope.
What “free” does—and does not—cover
The software and listed program services are offered at no charge to approved participants, but utilities must supply or obtain the hardware needed to run the software. They also need internet connectivity for Neighborhood Keeper and personnel with the skills to implement OT security technology in an industrial environment. Dragos says it provides guidance to help approved participants set up and configure their network environments.
Dragos does not specify a required appliance model, minimum system specifications, network tap, or other equipment list on its program page. Before buying hardware, ask Dragos what configuration fits your environment; the available materials do not support recommending a particular device.
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How to apply
- Review the program eligibility and requirements, including utility type, location, revenue, ownership, hardware, connectivity, and staffing readiness.
- Complete the Community Defense Program registration form.
- Wait for Dragos’s review. Approval is required; the published pages do not promise a decision timeline. Dragos says approved participants also become OT-CERT members.
- Read the terms presented during application. The 2025 free-offering terms say participants must continue to meet qualification criteria and enroll in and participate in Neighborhood Keeper and Threat Hunting, in addition to following the terms. Confirm the current requirements in the application materials, since program documents may change.
Readiness checklist for a small utility
- Eligibility: Are you a U.S. or Canadian water, electric, or natural-gas utility, and does your ownership and revenue meet Dragos’s current test?
- Operational fit: Can your team use OT asset visibility, threat detection, and vulnerability-management capabilities?
- Implementation: Do you have suitable hardware and personnel who can implement the technology in an industrial environment?
- Connectivity and participation: Can you provide internet connectivity for Neighborhood Keeper and participate in Neighborhood Keeper and Threat Hunting under the applicable terms?
- Approval: Have you submitted the form and received approval before planning on access?
What the program’s record establishes
Dragos’s public materials describe the program’s eligibility, listed capabilities, and participation requirements, but they do not establish an independent count of utilities served, incidents prevented, or risk reduced. In its December 6, 2023 announcement, Dragos CEO and co-founder Robert M. Lee said: “We look forward to bringing the Community Defense Program to the many small utilities that struggle to build OT cybersecurity programs due to a lack of resources and expertise.”
That announcement also named Elastic as a partner providing Elasticsearch as the search analytics platform supporting scale, log storage, and querying in the free Dragos Platform. This identifies infrastructure used in the program; it is not an end-user product recommendation.
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