by Gary Mintchell | Jan 23, 2019 | Automation, News, Security
Discussing industrial technology while ignoring cybersecurity is impossible these days. I just saw a survey that contends CEOs are more worried about cybersecurity than recession.
Note—I have been traveling for meetings and finally got my schedule together to post something. I’m also compiling my schedule for the annual ARC Advisory Group Industry Forum in a couple of weeks. If you’re going, I’d love to meet you. Send a note or a text. Maybe we can have coffee.
Schneider Electric Partners with Nozomi Networks
Schneider Electric has signed a global partnership agreement with Nozomi Networks to collaborate with Nozomi to provide customers in the industrial manufacturing and critical infrastructure segments advanced anomaly detection, vulnerability assessment, and other cybersecurity solutions and services, helping them to control, prevent and mitigate risks to their operations and business performance.
“The industry-wide transformation taking place today enables our customers to improve their business performance in ways they never imagined, but it requires them to expand connectivity across their operations, so they can extract, contextualize and apply new levels of rich data,” said Nathalie Marcotte, senior vice president, Industry Services and Cybersecurity, Schneider Electric. “However, extending connectivity also extends the attack surface for would-be cyber criminals. Therefore, cybersecurity can no longer be an afterthought. There’s too much at stake, financially and operationally. By adding Nozomi Networks to our family of partners, we strengthen our ability to help customers understand and eliminate risks and threats to their operations and assets, while reducing potential impact on their business success.”
The partnership enables Schneider Electric to respond more aggressively to immediate demand for effective, operational technology cybersecurity services, solutions and expertise in oil and gas, power, building automation and other industrial sectors. Schneider Electric will offer Nozomi Networks’ advanced solutions for industrial control system cyber resiliency and real-time operational visibility to customers worldwide. Schneider Electric will combine its EcoStruxure IIoT process automation and industrial control solutions with Nozomi’s SCADAguardian platform for real-time operations visibility, including:
- Advanced ICS Cybersecurity Solutions: The bundled solution will deliver the deep network visibility and OT cybersecurity industry operators require in one, comprehensive and highly scalable solution.
- Nozomi Networks SCADAguardian solution provides accurate asset discovery, superior threat detection and flexible and scalable deployment options to Schneider Electric customers.
- Nozomi Networks Certified Consultants: Schneider Electric consultants around the world will continue to be trained as certified Nozomi Networks engineers, scaling to support clients throughout their cybersecurity solution implementation, and providing expert OT threat hunting and forensic analysis.
- SCADAguardian Live in Schneider Electric Sites: Schneider Electric customers can experience Nozomi Networks’ real-time operational visibility and cybersecurity solutions via live threat scenarios running in Schneider Electric sites around the world.
EcoStruxure is Schneider Electric’s open, interoperable, IoT-enabled system architecture and platform.
“Years of multi-industry experience discerning the complexities of industrial control system networks, continuous innovation and expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning have made Nozomi Networks SCADAguardian the most comprehensive, scalable and mature product in its category,” said Edgard Capdevielle, chief executive officer, Nozomi Networks. “Our partnership with Schneider Electric accelerates our joint efforts to further protect global infrastructure while helping to improve the safety, efficiency, reliability and profitability of the world’s most critical operations.”
“The digital enterprise requires a holistic security approach that not only provides safeguards, but continually assesses, manages and monitors business and operating systems, which Nozomi Networks’ solutions do seamlessly,” Marcotte said. “Addressing cybersecurity head on can’t be limited to a single company, segment or region. That is why we are committed to being open, transparent and collaborative when it comes to helping global industry prevent and respond to cyberattacks. As this partnership shows, we will continue to collaborate with industry leaders who have the technology, expertise and unique skills required to secure and protect our customers’ people, production and profits.”
Mocana Integrates with Unified Automation’s High Performance OPC UA SDK
Simplifies Replacement of OpenSSL with Mocana’s FIPS 140-2 Validated Cryptographic Engine
Mocana announced the integration of Mocana TrustPoint, the company’s embedded cybersecurity software, with Unified Automation’s High Performance OPC Unified Architecture (UA) Software Development Kit (SDK). This integration enables industrial manufacturers and operators to easily replace OpenSSL, an open source crypto library, with Mocana’s proven cybersecurity software solution that is FIPS 140-2 validated and compliant with leading industrial cybersecurity standards.
“Mocana’s embedded cybersecurity solutions are used by the largest industrial companies for mission critical systems,” said Uwe Steinkrauss, Executive Director at Unified Automation. “We’re committed to partnering with Mocana to provide the OPC UA community with solutions that are secure and compliant with industry standards.”
OPC UA is an open machine-to-machine communication platform for industrial automation developed by the OPC Foundation. The OPC UA standard enables industrial control system (ICS) devices across multiple platforms to communicate using a services-oriented architecture (SOA) including enhanced publish / subscribe capabilities. The standard is broadly used across many industries including pharmaceutical, oil and gas, building automation, industrial robotics, security, manufacturing, process control, and transportation.
By default, most OPC UA SDKs have been designed to use OpenSSL, open source security software, to handle security functions such as authentication and encryption. Besides the large footprint hindering implementation on the smallest embedded devices, OpenSSL has been shown to have thousands of vulnerabilities, a hard to maintain complex code base, and slow vulnerability remediation times. Additionally, the latest NIST 140-2 standards cannot be met by the current version of OpenSSL. As a result, industrial companies are migrating away from OpenSSL to meet cybersecurity compliance standards.
Mocana’s integration with Unified Automation’s OPC UA SDKs makes it easy to replace OpenSSL with Mocana’s FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic engine and comprehensive device security lifecycle management platform. Mocana provides an OpenSSL Connector, a shim that transparently intercepts the device application’s OpenSSL API calls, changes the arguments, and passes them onto Mocana’s cryptographic engine without requiring any application code changes.
“Unified Automation has deep expertise with OPC UA and was instrumental in developing the OPC UA stacks, in particular the ANSI C stack,” said Srinivas Kumar, Vice President of Engineering at Mocana. “We are committed to making it easy to enable the highest level of security and device integrity for OPC UA-enabled industrial devices.”
Mocana’s proven device security solution facilitates compliance with cybersecurity standards, such as the NIST FIPS 140-2, IEC 62443, NIST 800-63, and CIP-007. Mocana and Unified Automation are members of the OPC Foundation.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 10, 2018 | Internet of Things, Security, Standards
Industrial Control Systems Cyber Security Through Trusted Systems
The week following Thanksgiving, I participated in a press tour with Siemens visiting a number of locations in Munich, Germany and following into Nuremberg for a day at SPS/IPC/Drives. I have posted a few things already and you can check out my Twitter stream.
Three weeks of travel plus my wife’s surgery (elective, she’s doing well with Nurse/Cook Gary sort of looking after her) took a toll on catching up with writing and email. Excuses aside, following are some additional thoughts from the trip.
If company executives and engineers cannot trust data coming from the IoT system, then digitalization and its many benefits will not be implemented. It’s in this spirit that Siemens launched the Charter of Trust earlier this year at the at the Munich Security Conference. Since then, several more global companies saw the value of the Charter of Trust, and signed on.
The Charter of Trust then begins with these three goals:
- protecting the data and assets of individuals and businesses;
- preventing damage to people, businesses, and infrastructures;
- building a reliable basis for trust in a connected and digital world.
We were introduced to several companies who have joined the Charter of Trust, visiting their sites, and discussing various aspects of cyber security.
Harry Brian, Business Development Manager, Industry Security Services, Siemens, gave us a Siemens background. “As we see attacks in the wild that are specifically crafted for PLCs and safety systems, no one can ignore the relevance and the urgency,” he told us. In addition, companies also must comply with numerous industrial security regulations and standards all over the world. “Help lies in a concept called defense in depth and is to be found in the IEC 62443 – the standard for IT security for Industrial Automation and Control Systems. Siemens has been addressing the cyber challenge for decades and is employing innovation and technology for anomaly detection and vulnerability monitoring and reporting with MindSphere.”
We stopped at NXP’s office in Munich. NXP has signed on to the Charter of Trust. The first discussion dove into autonomous driving, the convergence of AI and IoT, with Lars Reger, Automotive Chief Technology Officer and Wolfgang Steinbauer, VP, Head of the NXP Innovation Center Crypto and Security.
“The paradigm shift that comes with the convergence of AI and the IoT, will be even greater than the one we have witnessed with the introduction of the personal computer or the mobile phone,” they told us. “Effective security, based on the guiding principles of security and privacy by design, will be crucial to mitigate against the risks that come with it. Cybersecurity and data privacy aspects are paramount to generate trust, particularly so in critical future applications in smart traffic and autonomous driving. People, organizations and entire societies will support this transformation only if the security of their data and networked systems can be ensured.”
The Charter of Trust, they noted, defines what it means to trust along with security levels.
We stopped next in our tour of Munich at TÜV Süd, and a discussion with Andy Schweiger, Cybersecurity section Chief Executive Officer. For Americans not familiar with the organization, it is somewhat analogous to UL.
The news here is that TÜV Süd is developing a cyber security consulting practice and has been on a hiring spree adding to its staff.
The next stop was a tour of the IBM Watson IoT Center. Here IBM brings together developers, consultants, researchers and designers to drive state-of-the-art collaborative innovation with SMEs and start-ups, government, schools and universities and investors.
Speakers stressed the importance of involving governments in industrial cyber security work. Supply chains require careful consideration establishing risk-based rule for protection across all IIoT layers with clearly defined and mandatory requirements. There are many avenues for intrusions. They brought up the case of a hacker getting into a system through a smart lightbulb.
Finally came a tour of Allianz Stadium, home of the Bayern Munich Football Club where Siemens has a strong technology partnership.
The partnership includes energy, building infrastructure, mobility and security.
Fire prevention: Allianz Arena has a maximum protection against fire. Numerous fire detectors and sprinkler heads are located throughout the stadium: 4,600 fire detectors, 1 sprinkler head per 4 visitors (about 140 times more than fire-fighters per inhabitant in a German city), 3 water reservoirs with a total volume of 1,200 m3 in each sprinkler and hydrant centre.
Energy Management: Energy supply (introduction via screen inside the stadium) – new video wall quadruples the energy consumption in comparison to previous video wall. Supply through two transformer stations of the Stadtwerke Munich (municipal utilities) (capacity about 12 MW), peek-capacity on a match-day is about6 MW, which equals the consumption of a smaller town. Plans include a complete microgrid solution by Siemens, from power generation and storage through distribution, including monitoring.
Traffic Control: Siemens solutions (camera-system for the surveillance of traffic routes) around suburban traffic vehicles and traffic telematics ensure that all fans reach the stadium safely and on-time. Siemens traffic management systems regulate the flow of traffic on the motorways near the stadium. Video surveillance: Siemens security concepts and technologies are optimally adapted to the large visitor flow in the Arena. A video system with 90 cameras, records images that can be used by law enforcement.
Every professional soccer stadium has an experienced greenkeeper who cares for the sacred turf. And now, for the first time, the greenkeeper at the Allianz Arena will be assisted by an application. It’s being made possible by MindSphere, the open IoT operating system, and software developers at evosoft. The FC Bayern Greenkeeper App will now assist the greenkeeper and give the grass a voice. Sensors gather data and send it to MindSphere. The MindSphere application then evaluates the data and converts it into action recommendations. Water more. Expose the grass to stronger or longer light. Start the lawn heating or turn it down.These kinds of recommendations require a huge amount of data: light, temperature, humidity, the lawn’s salt content, wind, the chlorophyll content of the blades of grass. All this data is supplied by sensors installed on the field by the Dutch stadium lighting expert SGL, allowing its customers to monitor the lighting of their lawn. Current weather data and forecasts are also fed into the system. The data from the playing field is delivered to the collector box once per minute. MindSphere evaluates the data, formulates action recommendations, and converts both into clear diagrams. The greenkeeper keeps an eye on the turf via a smartphone – and he’s immediately provided with specific action recommendations.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 26, 2018 | Internet of Things, Organizations, Security
Digitalization breeds the need for data and connected devices. Trusted connections and data are required for success. Siemens invited a diverse group of press, analysts, podcasters, and bloggers to Munich this week (November 26-28) to discuss cybersecurity and the Charter of Trust.
I will use the words of Siemens below to discuss the rationale for the Charter of Trust. However the idea is that if users cannot trust their data and connections, they will never go further into digitalization and therefore not realize the anticipated benefits.
Some of the analysts and others in the conference had trouble understanding how something seemingly vague and not specifically standards-based would work. I think they missed the point. First, standards are good, but they take a long time to develop. What was needed was not another new standard. What is needed is for many companies to agree to a set of principles and then commonly work toward them for the mutual benefit of the industry, users, and society.
Eva Schulz-Kamm, Global Head of Government Affairs at Siemens AG, and Rainer Zahner, Global Head of Cybersecurity Governance at Siemens told us the digital world is changing everything. Billions of devices are connected by the Internet of things. That holds great potential for everyone, but also great risk. The risk of exposure to cyber-attacks. The risk of losing control over the systems that run our infrastructures. Cybersecurity is therefore crucial to the success of our digital economy – because only if the security of data and networked systems is guaranteed will people actively support the digital transformation. Then explained why Siemens has initiated the Charter of Trust.
Siemens’ 171 years of experience have also shown that the best way to make a lasting difference isn’t as one company, but as an industry – not only as one nation, but as part of a global community. In modern history, competitor businesses have forged standards together that have carried the world from one industrial revolution to the next – including the unfolding digital transformation of industry. Countries without clear-cut geopolitical alliances have come together to forge cross-border agreements that grow trade and advance peace.
It’s in this spirit that Siemens launched the Charter of Trust earlier this year at the at the Munich Security Conference, a longstanding forum for business and government leaders to discuss geopolitical issues. Since then, several more global companies saw the value of the Charter of Trust, and signed on. These companies committed to create the first-of-its-kind global alliance focused on answering a very important question: How do we secure critical infrastructure – from our factories to our power grids – in the digital age?
We also are carrying an important message together: that when we talk about security today, it isn’t just about diplomacy and resolving military conflicts – it is increasingly about cyber attacks that seek to undermine our democratic and economic values.
The Charter of Trust then begins with these three goals:
- protecting the data and assets of individuals and businesses;
- preventing damage to people, businesses, and infrastructures;
- building a reliable basis for trust in a connected and digital world.
“We know at the outset that a one-size fits all approach won’t work. We have instead agreed to 10 principles – from ensuring the highest levels of responsibility for cybersecurity within every company, to securing supply chains, products, and working with governments. Together, we will develop and continuously improve coordinated strategies and shared standards to protect critical infrastructures, public facilities and private companies.”
Charter of Trust members: The AES Corporation, Airbus, Allianz, Atos, Cisco, Dell Technologies, Enel, IBM, Munich Security Conference, NXP Semiconductors, SGS,. Deutsche Telekom, Total and TÜV SÜD.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 16, 2018 | News, Security
This is security day at The Manufacturing Connection. Not only do we have an implementation of CIP Security (see other post today), demand for increased protection where IT meets OT drives this decision to form a new company.
Moxa Inc., a leader in industrial communications and networking, and Trend Micro Inc., a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, have executed a letter of intent relating to the formation of a joint-venture corporation-TXOne Networks-which will focus on the security needs present in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments, including smart manufacturing, smart city, smart energy and more.
Historically, Information Technology (IT) and Operations Technology (OT) have operated within industrial organizations as isolated and independent networks with different teams, objectives and requirements. Organizations are teeming with machinery and devices that were not originally designed for connectivity to the corporate network, which means they often lack the ability to be easily updated or patched for security measures. There is a critical need to secure these devices, identify clear ongoing ownership, and to provide a holistic view across the broadening attack surface within enterprises.
Trend Micro, majority owner in TXOne Networks, identified the potential challenges faced by IIoT stakeholders early on and has been working on several fronts to secure the entire ecosystem, from data center to device. Moxa Inc. brings more than 30 years of experience in industrial networking and protocol expertise. TXOne Networks combines these strengths and responds to the growing security needs of industry, such as smart factories that require a unified solution for delivering deeper visibility into both devices and protocols. These complicated environments are made up of multiple layers requiring protection that sits in and between IT and OT. The responsibility for the security of these combined layers is traditionally unclear.
“I’m excited about this venture and how Trend Micro continues to take diverse yet focused growth steps that allow our teams to remain concentrated on core strengths while giving room to better serve customers and advance into new markets,” said Eva Chen, chief executive officer for Trend Micro. “Partnering with Moxa will combine more than 60 years of expertise to accelerate our ability to view and secure the extended enterprise including these important but often overlooked OT environments.”
TXOne Networks will build security gateways, endpoint agents and network segmentation to secure, control, and provide visibility of operational technology and equipment. Unlike some solutions focused solely on protecting assets nearest to the IT layer via detection, TXOne Networks has expertise closest to the OT layer and will provide proactive, timely and easily implemented solutions to secure the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) world.
In addition to investing intellectual capital, funds, and dedicated headcount, each parent company lends complementary channel expertise. For its part, Trend Micro brings IT channel partner strength while Moxa brings OT channel partner strength. Together these reinforce the business model and geographic territory targets. TXOne Networks will be led by Dr. Terence Liu, Trend Micro Vice President and former CEO of Broadweb. With experience building both products and teams, Dr. Liu will bring nearly 20 years of security product expertise to this new team.
“With this joint venture, Moxa and Trend Micro will position TXOne Networks as a global leader in the industry to create effective IIoT security solutions that help ensure that IIoT applications and critical infrastructures are secure,” said Andy Cheng, Strategic Business Unit President for Moxa Inc. “Industrial automation customers around the globe will be able to reap the benefits of having a holistic OT/IT security solution to protect assets and reduce operational risk.”
TXOne solutions also will enable OT customers to optimize network infrastructure for more IIoT opportunities. They will benefit from Moxa’s expertise in building reliable networks to bring more legacy and disparate networks into on industry-grade Ethernet backbone and raising the security level of the entire network’s communication to help drive nonstop productivity and cost reduction. Professional services will also be provided including security risk assessment, security breach response, and access to threat intelligence from Trend Micro Research and its Zero Day Initiative (ZDI).
“In a world where attacks are getting more persistent and sophisticated, while organizations are struggling with skills shortage and alert fatigue, these two groups are joining forces to successfully secure enterprises around the globe,” said Dr. Terence Liu, General Manager, TXOne Networks. “I am eager to pursue the opportunities and challenges this team will tackle in the months and years to come.”
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 16, 2018 | Automation, Security
I didn’t attend Automation Fair this year, but I have been watching for news. Here is a first product release from Rockwell Automation using CIP Security—an extension of the Common Industrial Protocol promulgated by ODVA designed for, well, secure communication as one part of a defense-in-depth strategy.
CIP is the application-layer protocol for EtherNet/IP. CIP Security supports transport layer security (TLS), the most proven security standard in widespread use on the World Wide Web today.
“CIP Security can protect devices and systems that use EtherNet/IP from some of the top risks in connected operations, such as unauthorized PCs,” said Tony Baker, portfolio manager, security, for Rockwell Automation. “It does this in a few key ways. First, it limits device connectivity to only trusted PCs and devices. It also guards against packet tampering to protect data integrity. Finally, it encrypts communications to avert unwanted data reading and disclosure.”
Engineers will be able to implement CIP Security in their systems through new Rockwell Automation products and firmware updates to existing products such as Allen-Bradley ControlLogix controllers, communication modules, and Kinetix servo drives.
In addition, the newly enhanced FactoryTalk Linx communications software allows FactoryTalk visualization and information software running on a PC to communicate to CIP Security-enabled devices. The new FactoryTalk Policy Manager tool within the FactoryTalk software is used to implement and configure security policies between CIP Security-enabled devices.
Rockwell Automation developed this new capability to work with existing industrial control devices regardless of whether or not they were designed to support CIP Security. This allows industrial users to phase in security over time and retrofit existing installations.
In addition, Allen-Bradley ControlLogix 5580 controllers will soon be certified compliant with the IEC 62443-4-2 security standard, building on the IEC 62443-4-1 certification that the Rockwell Automation Security Development Lifecycle has already received.
This latest certification means the controllers will meet the global standard’s robust cybersecurity requirements to help companies secure their connected operations. The ControlLogix 5580 family of controllers is one of the first platforms on the market to achieve this compliance.
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 1, 2018 | Security
I asked PAS founder and CEO Eddie Habibi about his pivot to cybersecurity during our conversation this week. It’s not a pivot, he corrected me. Cybersecurity is a natural progression from all the work PAS has done since its founding.
(Read to the end to learn about further security threats.)
Fighting Cyber intrusions begins with data
“Cybersecurity starts with knowing everything in the system from level 0 forward. This creates a baseline for change management. (PAS product) Integrity had that already, so we built analytics, visualization, and reporting on top of it,” he added.
Everybody on OT side looking for diversified information, security is fundamental, know what you have, know your vulnerabilities, address them. Golden baseline, so you can manage change
Supply chain (reason PR firm reached out), If you have a six sigma process but if your suppliers don’t then you don’t have the full value. Cyber is the same way. If I know everything I need to do but if DCS vendor sends patch with malware, then I’m in trouble anyway.
PAS is seeing customers in sectors they’ve never worked in before. While once PAS was focused on working with one supplier, now it works with more than 80 different systems and brands.
I asked about corporate awareness and concern. Habibi said pressure is coming from boards of directors who are concerned about risk and liability. “I haven’t seen anything this serious for a long time. It’s as serious as safety was in the ‘90s.”
USB as a Threat
This was almost a #DUH moment when I saw the press release from Honeywell. USB media devices pose a significant and intentional cybersecurity threat to industrial control networks.
Raise your hand if you already knew that. However, Honeywell used a remote monitoring technology to document the threat.
Data derived from Honeywell technology called Secure Media Exchange used to scan and control USB devices at 50 customer locations showed that nearly half (44 percent) detected and blocked at least one file with a security issue. It also revealed that 26 percent of the detected threats were capable of significant disruption by causing operators to lose visibility or control of their operations.
