Charter of Trust Boosts Cyber Security Awareness

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.