The goals of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are the same goals that industry has had forever: reducing downtime, cutting costs and staying competitive. What’s different about the next industrial revolution is how the goals will be met. This time the breakthrough in innovation involves interconnectivity and the self-regulation of machines, along with a dose of Big Data, to drive continuous improvement processes.

Someone recently asked me the best way to describe Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) in laymen’s terms. If you are not familiar with DPI, it describes two technologies used by firewalls to detect and block unwanted communications.

The future of industrial automation is being shaped by the vision of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In this vision the controllers, actuators and sensing devices used in manufacturing will be integral components of information networks. Cyber-physical interaction will lead to new products and services that we can’t even imagine today.

As a software engineer who creates industrial security technologies I am often asked “Why are industrial networks so hard to secure?” This is a big topic, so today I will address only “Why are PLCs so insecure?”

If you design industrial networks for food and beverage processors, or if you are an engineer in such a facility, you know that the cost of downtime is high. In fact it’s estimated that if a cabling system fails, the repair and labor costs alone could be 15 to 20 times the cost of the connector or cable itself -- if they can even be fixed at all. Downtime can reach overall costs of $20,000 to $30,000 per hour.