While there are many benefits that have come to ICS and SCADA networks through the increased use of standard networking and Internet technologies, it has made the need to secure them ever more critical. Firewalls play an important role in blocking threats and containing internal cyber incidents that could impact safety, reliability and productivity. They control the flow of communications and filter packets to block or contain harmful network traffic.

This week a major step forward in Industrial Ethernet is being demonstrated at the Belden Booth at the Hanover Fair (Hall 9, Booth D11) in Germany. It’s a live demonstration of Hirschmann Ethernet switches using the IEEE 802.1 time sensitive networking (TSN) standard to allow the simultaneous transmission of critical control plus best-effort background traffic.

Who hasn’t been frustrated when traffic comes to a standstill or the underground breaks down? Such frustration is a very real human emotion that lets us know that our highways, subways and light rail transit systems are vital for our lives to run smoothly. Add it up across thousands or millions of people: if transportation systems don’t work, entire economies and societies suffer.

Nowadays, manufacturing businesses rely heavily on their automation, instrumentation and control data communications for industrial networking. When it comes to relaying signals between devices, machinery and the control system, there’s no margin for error. Indeed network availability of 99.999 percent uptime or better is often the goal. Given this reality, a robust industrial Ethernet infrastructure consisting of environmentally-hardened network cabling, connectivity and active components is essential to long-term performance and reliability.

Thanks to the recent 2016 Data Breach Digest from the Verizon RISK team, a story about poor cybersecurity at a water company has recently been in the media. The company, given the fictional name of the Kemuri Water Company (KWC), is responsible for the water supply of a number of counties. Verizon was retained by KWC to assess their networks for indications of a security breach. Of concern was an unexplained pattern of valve and duct movements that had occurred over the previous 60 days. The Verizon team identified that breaches had occurred and that KWC’s SCADA system had been manipulated to alter the amount of chemicals that went into their water system as well as the flow rate.