Chemical Processing - October 2007 - (Page 26)

Become a cyber-security pacesetter Providing the right data access and security involves a tough balancing act By Rick Kaun, Matrikon, Inc. by many forces, including data access to enable business decisions, vendor access for process improvements and advanced control exercises like loop tuning and alarm management, as well as for proving regulatory compliance. However, this increasing need for access is further diluting the security of many of these systems and is putting many process control environments at risk. While in some plants this is a nuisance, for most a loss of control over a process can pose a serious safety threat. as one noted security professional who works for a major refinery once pointed out: “Our industry is one such that a loss of access or control over our systems usually means someone dies.” regardless of the potential harm, any plant with little or no security in and around its control system will at least lose production for some time. this can translate into rework, overtime, environmental release and other intangibles such as loss of competitive edge, investor confidence and potentially even the ability to stay in business. The challenges the new push for control systems is to try to balance access and security. and the pressure is coming from many angles. Increasing market competition means that most plants are “pushing the envelope” to run faster, more efficiently and with less downtime. this is leading to more www.chemicalprocessing.com Market competition traditionally has driven the evolution of control systems. Not that long ago, most control systems were autonomous and built upon proprietary vendor technology, with solutions geared towards access to data, speed and functionality (or reliability). access to data was the most important feature. at first many vendors built their own protocols or languages to allow for the transfer of data. Soon the automation landscape became very proprietary and independent of other systems and protocols. Parallel to this was the development of ethernet networks for business data networks. So, vendors started providing “ethernet compliance” to enable communication between systems including those outside the plant environment. However, in the rush to market many vendors built ad hoc versions of protocols that worked for the purpose at hand but didn’t address security. Now most plants with control systems must contend with many pressures both to allow access to data and to secure those data. (Distributed control systems and supervisory control and data acquisition systems both face such challenges.) these opposing trends are driven 26 • October 2007 http://www.chemicalprocessing.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chemical Processing - October 2007

Chemical Processing - October 2007 Contents From the Editor ChemicalProcessing.com Field Notes In Process Energy Saver Compliance Advisor Biofeedstocks See Real Growth Become a Cyber-Security Pacesetter Go Beyond Condition Monitoring Disposable Equipment Earns Lasting Role Improve Control Loop Performance Ethanol Plant Boosts Output and Saves Energy Process Puzzler Plant InSites Equipment & Services Ad Lits Product Spotlight/Classifieds Ad Index End Point

Chemical Processing - October 2007

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