OPC Foundation, PI, ODVA and FieldComm Group released of the first whitepaper of their joint working group, the Industrial Ethernet Security Harmonization Group (IESHG).
The IESHG meets on a regular basis to discuss security topics in the industrial automation context. The goal of the working group is the alignment of industrial Ethernet security concepts, so that end users of the protocols have less complexity when using security in their automation systems.
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The first whitepaper was created to shed light on different topics of the security concepts of industrial automation environments. General concepts are explained in an FAQ, like Public-key infrastructures, the different certificate types of the SDOs, as well as certificate management tools. Further concepts are currently being worked out, that will lead to further whitepapers.
“The end user and legal security requirements for industrial Ethernet technologies accelerate at a high speed in these days," said IESHG work group leader Simon Merklin, Endress+Hauser. "With the IESHG, we ensure that the security concepts of our SDOs lead to harmonized and easy-to-use, secure solutions. With this great group of security experts, we pave the security road for technological advancements, like Ethernet-APL in combination with our industrial Ethernet technologies.”
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Randy Armstrong, the Chair of the OPC UA Security Working Group said: “Security has become a top priority for IA users today and the onus is on SDOs and IA product vendors to provide solutions that make it practical for IA users to manage large networks of devices with security enabled by default. The IESHG allows the SDOs to help address this challenge by finding ways to agree on common terminology and solutions.”
Stefan Hoppe, President of the OPC Foundation, added: “The OPC Foundation supports the IESHG effort and is glad to contribute its deep security experience, which it used to design the OPC UA standard to be secure from the ground up and continues to extend via its 20-member-strong security working group. The global OPC UA adoption we achieved can, in part, be attributed to companies’ demand for secure data connectivity as they seek to digitalize and modernize. Based on this realization, we believe our harmonization efforts with the other SDOs will help the industry innovate faster with more confidence.”Â
