by Gary Mintchell | May 2, 2024 | Leadership, Podcast
Gary offers observations on the continuing saga of former GE executives running Boeing changing the culture from engineering-driven to Wall Street-driven. Also thoughts on good manufacturing leadership.
Some people have nothing to lose in the game. They have no skin in the game.
The Milton Friedman school of economics says top executive need to have stock in the company so that they have skin in the game. Of course, that led to excesses like Jack Welch at GE and his protogés at 3M, Boeing, Home Depot who all ruined thriving companies by playing financial games in order to maximize their stock options in short term gains. Did they have skin in the game? Well, would they lose anything if the stock didn’t perform? Probably not much since they also negotiated large salaries and golden parachutes.
Skin in the game would have been if Elon Musk had sat inside the Cybertruck when they shot at it to test the bulletproof construction.
Soul in the game is when you care. Robert Pirisig writing his essay on quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance talked of the mechanic who cared about the quality of his work. Obviously the executives at Boeing had no soul in the game.
by Gary Mintchell | May 2, 2024 | Data Management, Generative AI, Operations Management
Now that ChatGPT has been out for a while, people playing with it have discovered the shortcomings. Today at MIT, Sam Altman acknowledged the shortcomings of GenerativeAI. But that doesn’t stop companies from jumping on the GenAI bandwagon. Yes, they are using it. I’d just suggest doing a test drive or asking a lot of questions to discover just what it can do for you.
This is news from a company using Generative AI for predictive applications. Check it out.
SymphonyAI, a leader in predictive and generative enterprise AI SaaS, announced IRIS (Industrial Reasoning and Insights Service) Foundry, an industrial data operations platform for the rapid creation of robust digital industrial applications that improve process efficiency, reduce unscheduled asset downtime, and enhance connected worker capabilities. IRIS Foundry, powered by SymphonyAI’s award-winning predictive and generative EurekaAI platform, uses AI-enabled data contextualization at enterprise scale and is both open and composable.
IRIS Foundry provides the differentiating building blocks of industrial data management and governance needed to deploy AI-embedded manufacturing solutions at enterprise scale. IRIS Foundry has prebuilt connectors to extract data from IT, OT, and enterprise data sources into polyglot dataops storage to ensure versatile handling and integration of multiple data contexts. Data is organized into a structured asset hierarchy using AI-powered P&ID ingestion or through an existing asset historian framework. This process, enhanced with sophisticated contextualization services, automatically maps data into a unified namespace. The result is a dynamic industrial knowledge graph, simplifying access to and navigation of information. The IRIS Foundry knowledge graph is a foundational layer for enriched analysis and insights, empowering IRIS copilots for user-based interactions and guiding the exploration and understanding of complex data landscapes. Industrial applications built on IRIS Foundry adhere to data governance, audit, and security standards.
IRIS Foundry offers a low-code, drag-and-drop user experience, easy integration with programming tools, and an ability to deploy in various modes ranging from SaaS to customer-hosted models in a private cloud. Built on a lightweight architecture with cloud and edge computing in scope, the install footprint is synergistic with manufacturers’ operational technology (OT), information technology (IT), and external data ecosystems and contains hundreds of prebuilt connectors, reducing the effort to unify industrial data.
by Gary Mintchell | May 1, 2024 | Automation, Security
The 6th Honeywell cybersecurity research concludes that yes, you are being targeted, and maybe not where you expect it. Yes, it is still humans that are the most vulnerable link in the cybersecurity defense Maginot line.
- New research indicates increasing sophistication of cyber criminals targeting operational technology (OT) and the industrial sector
- USB devices continue to be leveraged as part of larger cyberattack campaigns aiming to manipulate rather than exploit
New research from Honeywell provides insight into just how dangerous unchecked USB devices can be in operational technology (OT) environments. Honeywell discovered that adversaries are now using USB devices to gain access to industrial control systems, where they can hide and observe operations before launching attacks that leverage the inherent capabilities of the systems, known as “living off the land” (LotL) attacks. These attacks are less dependent on exploiting vulnerabilities and more focused on collecting information, evading detection and manipulating the target systems.
“Targeted cyber-physical attacks are no longer about zero-day exploits that take advantage of an unknown or unaddressed vulnerability. Instead, they are more about silent residency – using LotL attacks to wait until there is an opportune moment to turn a system against itself,” said Micheal Ruiz, vice president of OT cybersecurity for Honeywell.
According to the report, most of the malware detected on USB devices by Honeywell’s Secure Media Exchange could cause loss of view or loss of control of an industrial process, a potentially catastrophic scenario for operators.
The 2024 report is based on the Honeywell Global Analysis, Research and Defense (GARD) team’s tracking and analysis of aggregated cybersecurity threat data from hundreds of industrial facilities globally during a 12-month period.
Several of the report’s additional key findings included:
- USB devices continue to be used as an initial attack vector into industrial environments, as 51% of malware is designed to spread via USB, a nearly six-fold increase from 9% in 2019.
- Content-based malware, which uses existing documents and scripting functions maliciously, is on the rise, accounting for 20% of malware.
- Over 13% of all malware blocked specifically leveraged the inherent capabilities of common documents, such as Word, Excel and PDF documents.
- Malware can cause significant impact, such as loss of view, loss of control, or system outages in OT environments. 82% of malware is capable of causing disruption to industrial operations.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 30, 2024 | Edge, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
In brief:
- Companies can now monitor and manage fleets of edge nodes locally, ensuring continuous secure operations even when cloud connectivity is disrupted.
- ZEDEDA Edge Sync is the first edge solution that enables customers to manage deployments locally and from the cloud, providing the flexibility to move to the cloud from air-gapped environments.
- ZEDEDA Edge Sync is the latest addition to ZEDEDA’s Edge Application Services suite. It simplifies the security and management of edge infrastructure and applications at scale.
ZEDEDA continues to update its edge orchestration solution. This update expands its utility.
ZEDEDA, the leader in edge management and orchestration, today announced ZEDEDA Edge Sync, a secure and convenient solution tailored for air-gapped environments and edge deployments lacking consistent cloud connectivity.
Despite advancements in connectivity at the edge, many deployments still face network challenges due to their distributed nature, ultra-secure systems or unreliable connections. ZEDEDA Edge Sync solves these problems by enabling local node management while seamlessly integrating with ZEDEDA’s platform.
Due to their distributed nature, modern edge deployments confront numerous network connectivity challenges. Edge deployments often lack consistent cloud connectivity due to high-security air-gapped environments, unreliable network connectivity, or frequent planned outages. ZEDEDA Edge Sync solves these problems by running on a local network regardless of the network connectivity method and connecting to the ZEDEDA cloud controller when connectivity is restored.
For example, it may be common for a location’s network connection to get interrupted for some time, either planned or unplanned. To avoid any service interruption during the outage, the site operator can ensure that edge nodes are functioning properly and that configuration changes are possible while the outage persists.
This applies even to completely air-gapped deployments where the device can never connect to the outside world once it is deployed. ZEDEDA Edge Sync allows monitoring and changes at a fleet level as long as the local edge nodes have access to the network the ZEDEDA Edge Sync service is on. It eliminates the need for expensive hardware components by running on standard systems and supports varying levels of disconnectedness without compromising functionality.
ZEDEDA Edge Sync provides a management and monitoring API that enables customers to build their own custom integrations, applications, and HMI interfaces on top of it, leveraging ZEDEDA’s API-based approach.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 29, 2024 | News, Security, Technology
I haven’t had word from ISA for quite some time. And especially the cybersecurity certification program. This news concerns GE Power Conversion’s HPCi Controller achieving cybersecurity Security Level 3 certificates of conformance. Congratulations.
The International Society of Automation (ISA) announced that its ISASecure cybersecurity certification program has issued the world’s first Security Level 3 (SL3) certificates of conformance. The ISASecure program certifies conformance to the ISA/IEC 62443 series of internationally recognized automation and control systems cybersecurity standards.
Among the first automation products to achieve this challenging security classification is GE Power Conversion’s HPCi Controller.
“We are pleased to see GE taking a leadership role in securing automation that affects our everyday lives,” said Andre Ristaino, managing director, ISA conformity assessment programs. “Securing products to SL3 surpasses the minimum SL2 needed to defend against intentional cyber attacks.”
The ISASecure SL3 certification provides confidence to GE Power Conversion customers that the HPCi Controller is free of known cybersecurity vulnerabilities and is robust against network attacks, and independently confirms conformance to ISA/IEC 62443-4-2 SL3 security requirements. This is the world’s first ISASecure CSA 1.0.0 Level 3 certification.
Following soon after GE, Bitron Electronics also completed the necessary requirements to pass the SL3 certification evaluation, making Bitron the second supplier to achieve this advanced certification level under the ISASecure certification scheme.
“With two SL3 certifications already complete, these certifications further demonstrate the marketplace’s growing acceptance of the ISASecure ISA/IEC 62443 conformance scheme as the leading certification scheme on the market today,” said Brandon Price, senior principal for industrial cybersecurity at ExxonMobil and ISASecure board chair.
Companies that choose to achieve higher levels of certification understand how to apply the ISA/IEC 62443 standards and recognize the value of protections and assurances they provide to their end-user customers. As the need for advanced security protection grows, ISASecure certifications – recognized and accepted globally – continue to be the most sought-after certification specified by end users.
ISASecure recently published a whitepaper describing the value of securing automation and control systems to SL2 or higher. “The Case for ISA/IEC 62443 Security Level 2 as a Minimum for COTS Components” is available for download on the ISASecure website.
