E+C August 2018

CYBER SECURITY

Inadequately skilled manpower While the industrial sector prides itself on a high- ly-skilled workforce focused on automation sys- tems, such product-specific expertise does not al- ways translate into adequate expertise in industrial IT networks. This gap weakens an organisation's ability to develop comprehensive protection and prevention strategies.

of the control system; especially if the patch is not tested rigorously. This increases the organisation’s reluctance to act on potential threats. Off-the-shelf IT solutions in industrial environments While the gradual shift toward IT-based solutions in the industrial space was made for commercial benefits, including ease-of-operability and integra- tion, it has also resulted in control systems having to face increased exposure to malware and security threats that are targeted at commercial systems. This increases the risk to control system availability.

Ivan Fernandez is the Industry Director at Frost & Sullivan’s Industry practice in Sydney, Australia.

CYBER SECURITY

Bringing greater productivity and flexibility to a connected enterprise

users to choose the I/O to meet their specific application needs. And it gives intelligent control to quickly respond to the process in a Connected Enterprise.” A wide range of safety modules will be available for the FLEX 5000 I/O platform in a future release. Users will be able to meet their specific safety needs with modules that are TÜV certified for use in safety applications up to SIL 3 and PLe, Cat. 4. The FLEX 5000 I/O family is designed for security to help com- panies protect their assets and their brand. The platform helps en- able the secure convergence of industrial and enterprise systems when using an open, standard and IT-friendly Ethernet network. This is a result of deploying a defense-in-depth security strategy with firmware encryption, birth certificates and secure boot func- tionality. Enquiries: Christo Buys.Tel. +27 (0) 11 654 9700 or email cbuys@rockwell.com

The new Allen-Bradley FLEX 5000 I/O platform from Rockwell Au- tomation can create smarter, more productive and more flexible industrial control systems. The platform’s higher-speed connectivity and expanded band- width deliver increased amounts of data back to the controller. This helps future-proof control systems for a Connected Enter- prise. It is built on a 1 Gigabit architecture with communications supporting Device Level Ring (DLR), linear and star topologies. A future release will support Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) for a redundant network topology. Both OEMs and process operations can also use the new FLEX 5000 I/O modules to improve productivity. Engineering time is re- duced with simplified wiring and design. Installation is eased with a flexible architecture that includes vertical and horizontal mount- ing and copper and fibre media options. Hardware requirements can be minimised during installation because the modules are de- signed to operate in extreme environments – from oilfields in the arctic cold to mines in the sweltering heat (-40 C to 70 C operating temperatures). During production, the modules can also reduce costly and unplanned downtime, especially in continuous process-control applications. Removal and insertion under power (RIUP) allows technicians to replace existing I/O, and an online change capability allows configuration of new I/O, both while the system continues to run. In addition, the flexibility to configure alarms, events and di- agnostics at the channel level helps drive maintenance efficiency. “We are building on the success of our popular FLEX I/O plat- form, and long-time users will find that flexibility and reliability con- tinue to be its hallmark,” said Christo Buys, Business Manager – Control Systems, Rockwell Automation Sub-Saharan Africa. “With Logix 5000 series technology, the FLEX 5000 I/O platform allows

24 Electricity + Control

AUGUST 2018