TSG / ControlBurn, jointly launched with technical partner Frenos, provides an approach for organizations running networked operational systems to test the security of their operational technologies when the environment changes, without the need to access the production systems.
Raleigh, North Carolina, October 8, 2026 / PRNewswire / -- North American Technology and Consulting Services Company The Select Group ( TSG ) today announced the launch of TSG / ControlBurn. This new service allows organizations from various industries to see which locations their competitors can reach within their operational technology ( OT ) networks and helps them to block these pathways. TSG / ControlBurn is delivered by TSG and is brought to market in collaboration with Frenos; Frenos's simulated penetration testing platform provides support for the digital twin of this service and competitor simulations.
Most industrial organizations continuously monitor their physical assets: the vibration of rotating equipment, the temperature of transformers, and the pressure in pipelines. However, in the same context, network security is still managed on a calendar-based cycle. A penetration test is typically conducted once a year, often covering only a single site, and it takes several weeks to schedule around a downtime window. By the time the results are delivered, firewall rules may have changed, suppliers may have added new remote access paths, and new vulnerabilities may have been discovered in the already operational equipment. This phenomenon is referred to as the "evaluation half-life." Each change diminishes the value of the previous assessment, and in most environments, that value is exhausted before the next assessment is scheduled.
AI is further shortening this “half-life.” In the past, planning a multi-hop OT attack meant spending hours manually correlating firewall configurations, asset lists, and vulnerability lists. Frenos claims that its AI inference agents can complete this task in just minutes. Attackers using generic AI can also perform a similar task to some extent, which means that attack paths that previously required experts can now be exploited by actors with much weaker capabilities.
"I am incredibly excited about the significance of TSG / ControlBurn to our company,"The Select Group Chief Executive Officer George Karakostantis indicates."Our customers have always known that we excel in modern delivery methods. Through TSG / ControlBurn, we have transformed this experience into a formal service with clear boundaries, definite outcomes, and team responsibility throughout the process. We are proud to collaborate with Frenos; their platform allows us to demonstrate to our customers what their competitors can achieve within their OT environment, and to help them shut down those pathways without compromising the production environment. This reflects the way we wish to serve our customers and represents an important step forward for TSG. It is precisely the result-oriented work that our customers have been requesting, and we are delighted to deliver it to them."
TSG / ControlBurn Replace annual snapshot evaluations with validation linked to changes. TSG Utilize data already collected by customers to build a digital twin of their OT environment, including firewall and router configurations, routing tables, asset inventories, and vulnerability export data, and run adversary simulations on this digital twin on the Frenos platform. According to Frenos, this platform does not require proxies, scans, or access to the production environment, and each simulated attack is executed within the digital twin, rather than on the actual network. TSG is responsible for transforming these simulations into practical actions that reduce risk: verifying the data input into the models, interviewing engineers to understand key points of the processes, sorting out the findings in light of operational realities, and preparing change proposals for approval by the operations change committee.
With the help of TSG / ControlBurn, organizations can:
- View which attack paths can reach critical assets: from the assumption of an intrusion having occurred to the systems defined by the organization as critical, sorted by priority, along with the prerequisites and consequences of each path.
- Verify the effectiveness of segmented isolation: Test the boundaries based on actual configurations rather than network diagrams.
- Reduce the number of vulnerabilities to only those that are truly exploitable: Determine the priority based on whether the vulnerabilities are located on the modeled attack path, and confirm their exploitability in conjunction with customer engineers.
- Understand the explosion radius: Find out which other locations an opponent might be able to reach once a certain area is breached.
- Act according to a clear plan: Obtain a roadmap sorted by dependencies, including mitigation alternatives and clear recommendations for prioritized actions.
TSG / ControlBurn provides three levels, with each level starting from the same four-day project. TSG / ControlBurn Foundation evaluates a site and its main OT network, and delivers a prioritized set of attack paths, mitigation measures, and a roadmap. TSG / ControlBurn Consulting adds TSG support during the execution of the roadmap, including prioritizing backlog items, packaging change proposals for the customer's change committee, and re-simulating after each change to confirm that the paths have been closed. TSG / ControlBurn Implementation adds TSG engineers who, within the customer's change control framework, implement the approved changes together with the customer's engineers. At all levels, each change is approved by the customer, and operational decisions are also the responsibility of the customer.
Since each simulation is run within the model, rather than in a real-time process, TSG / ControlBurn makes it feasible to conduct tests when the environment changes: whether after design modifications are completed, before official deployment, or during the addition of new supplier remote access paths, migration of cloud historical databases, or integration of acquired sites. Each time a simulation is rerun, the same assumptions and key assets are used as before, allowing managers to directly compare results and determine whether the remedial actions have reduced the exposure risk.
"No one would accept that a gas turbine is inspected only once a year and yet is claimed to be under monitoring; however, this is still how most OT networks are assessed to this day,"The Select Group Product and Alliance Leader Adam Mattis stated.Frequent testing alone cannot solve this problem, as the calendar-based scheduling is inherently a flawed trigger condition. The correct time for verification is when something changes, and Frenos allows us to do this without touching the production environment. What remains are those less glamorous tasks, which are precisely where we spend most of our time: obtaining clean configuration exports, verifying asset lists, communicating with engineers who understand which systems are most important, and transforming our findings into change packages that will be approved by the operations change committee. The effectiveness of the platform depends on the quality of the input, and a discovery can only reduce risk once someone actually implements the necessary changes.
TSG / ControlBurn is part of TSG's investment in its alliance partner network and its own products. These products combine professional partner technologies with the delivery services undertaken by TSG. Frenos provides the simulation platform; TSG is responsible for the services themselves, the delivery team, and the responsibility for the results.
"Relying solely on technology alone is not enough to solve operational security issues. To transform intelligence into a real reduction in risk, the correct professional capabilities are required."Frenos Founder and CEO Brian Proctor stated.“Frenos reveals which locations the opponent can reach, while TSG provides the practical engineering capabilities and change management skills necessary to block these paths. In collaboration with The Select Group, we ensure that our continuous simulation intelligence can be transformed into immediate, real-world risk reduction without interfering with operations.”
TSG / ControlBurn is subordinate to TSG's cybersecurity business and is connected to its cloud and infrastructure, data and AI, learning and change management, as well as project management and agile services. This is because most OT exposure issues can be traced back to architectural decisions, the quality of asset inventory data, supplier access processes, and gaps in change management. This service is applicable to all industries that utilize TSG services; any breach in networked operational systems can lead to physical consequences, including building management systems, data center infrastructure, clinical equipment networks, and production lines.
Organizations can access selectgroup.com / controlburn to learn more about TSG / ControlBurn, and read the TSG white paper " The Assessment Half - Life".
About The Select Group
The Select Group is a technical consulting and services partner that helps organizations transform their modernization efforts into measurable business impacts. By aligning technical strategies and implementations with the most critical priorities, TSG assists clients in advancing modernization in a targeted manner, adapting to evolving needs, and deriving greater value from both existing and emerging technologies. Its approach is centered around continuous improvement, enabling organizations to strengthen their capabilities over time and achieve lasting results. For more information, please visit: www.selectgroup.com.
About Frenos
Frenos claims to be the industry's first fully simulated AI penetration testing platform, combining digital twin technology with AI reasoning agents that think like competitors, to reveal every attack path in the OT environment with zero risk. Frenos is changing the way operational technology ( OT ) network security teams evaluate critical task sites and the security posture of environments, reducing evaluation time from months to just minutes without any impact on operations. For more information, follow their blog, contact them at LinkedIn, or visit their website: www.frenos.io.
Message source: The Select Group
