Industrial safety
Devices exchange information with each other in digital form –
data is the basic language of devices, and their secure communication is the proper management of the data set.
Industrial security (OT) is special not only in terms of huge responsibility or working in real time, on constantly working physical devices. It is unique because it is not based only on the analysis of potential attacks, but on anomalies, which in most cases have their cause in the seemingly “normal” work of devices, software, or people.
Change management is the foundation for security in both IT and OT.
Visibility, which all specialists strive for, is the foundation of management in OT. Change control, and above all their detection, is extremely difficult in industry, if only because of the diverse hardware environment, mutually separated networks and systems, licensing or warranty restrictions.
Another, but even more serious issue, is the low threshold of digital resistance of industrial components, because they must meet other rigorous expectations, and this entails minimizing the code, the component itself, and thus its capabilities. Meeting industrial standards that are important from the point of view of operation, forces manufacturers to limit functions, not to expand them.
Hence, we cannot expect that recognized software from the IT world, based on agents, could be installed on OT devices. This is basically unrealistic. Copying traffic burdens already burdened active devices installed in field cabinets. Connecting unsecured, simple industrial networks to the MGMT network is a threat in itself, so it must be properly thought out, prepared and implemented.
DYNACON, after many years of research, work, implementation and knowledge acquisition, provides the OT market with specialized and easy-to-use industrial solutions that have proven themselves for years in the most demanding OT environments. These are battle-tested, in continuous and cyclical processes, in power engineering, heating, railways, automotive and other industries, devices and software that are strictly adapted to industrial environments, but above all focus on change*.
* Understanding that change entails potential incompatibility and disruption of the delicate stability of OT systems – often based on trust that nothing will change once a technology or production line is launched – allows for effective detection of anomalies, long before the consequences occur.
DYNACON