Cybersecurity Viewpoints

Like in the years before the WEKA Media Group organized an Automation Summit 4.0 during the SPS/IPC/Drives fair in Nuremberg, Germany. To cater to the continued interest in topics concerning Industrie 4.0, four sessions were offered on the first two exhibition days: Edge Computing, TSN and OPC UA, IoT Platforms and Smart Sensors. These subjects represented the “hot topics” of the exhibition and all sessions included presentations by well-known companies and industry experts.

To navigate today’s tidal wave of digital transformation and to make disruptive technologies work, manufacturers, municipalities, utilities, and all other organizations need to roll out the right mix of technologies at just the right time. This means driving and managing change in processes, people, ecosystems, and technologies while keeping safety and cybersecurity at the forefront.

ARC Advisory Group attended the IOT Solutions World Conference (IoTSWC) on the grounds of the FIRA Barcelona last October and we were very impressed. The venue is modern and in contrast to automation fairs, there was an atmosphere of quiet and calm, that favored concentration and quality conversations. With over 300 companies and record attendance of over 16000 visitors this may seem counterintuitive, but that was our impression. The growth of both exhibitors by more than 40 percent and visitor numbers by 25 percent is impressive. Even though this was just the fourth edition of the event, the size was one of a grown-up world-scale fair.

Adoption of the IoT in today’s smart buildings has created a new landscape that eliminates barriers between IT and OT technology. All of this advanced technology and capability, however, creates increased cybersecurity concerns and risks. The increased focus on cybersecurity for smart buildings is already manifesting itself in new relationships between smart building technology vendors and leading cybersecurity providers with experience and capabilities in both the IT and OT space.

The 11th Asian Downstream Summit in Singapore, hosted by the Energy Market Authority, attracted over 800 attendees, 80 speakers, and 28 sponsors and exhibitors. ADS, considered the anchor oil and gas event of the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW), provided a platform for networking, seeking partnerships, and showcasing technologies through relevant case studies. The three-track agenda focused on core refining & petrochemical technologies, innovation, asset management, energy efficiency, Industry 4.0 and digital transformation in the oil & gas sector. KBC (a Yokogawa company) held a readiness assessment workshop to help people identify the gap between their own organizations and the industry leaders; in particular the characteristics behind the digital leadership and change management practices of other organizations as these apply to digital transformation.

Protection of critical infrastructure and key resources from unintended compromise or deliberate attack is a well-established imperative in most industrialized nations.  Although the initial emphasis may have been on physical protection, the growing awareness of the risks associated with inadequate industrial cybersecurity have led to the inclusion of threats and vulnerabilities in this area in national response plans.

With the completion of the CC-Link IE TSN specification, the CC-Link Partner Association (CLPA) is setting the stage for a new development wave of industrial devices running on CC-Link IE that can now take advantage of Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) technology. TSN is a set of additional standards related to standard IEEE Ethernet. Initially developed for the automotive industry, TSN quickly became popular with industrial network consortia because of its ability to support determinism.

To navigate today’s tidal wave of digital transformation and to make disruptive technologies work, manufacturers, municipalities, utilities, and all other organizations need to roll out the right mix of technologies at just the right time. This means driving and managing change in processes, people, ecosystems, and technologies while keeping safety and cybersecurity at the forefront.

Rockwell’s recent Automation Fair 2018 in Philadelphia had record customer attendance (more than 8,000 customers) for this annual event when it’s held at a location other than Chicago. This event keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it will be real interesting to see what the attendance will be next year when Automation Fair returns to Chicago.

While these connectivity-related developments offer significant benefits, they also increase the risks of cyber incidents.  Connectivity creates new attack vectors, removes barriers to lateral movement, and enables broader access to information stores and critical control systems that amplifies the potential impact.