As industry readers well know, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is an authority of critical importance for any organization operating or manufacturing electrical equipment and related accessories. The creator and maintainer of the ubiquitous National Electric Code (also known as NFPA 70), originally founded in 1896, is devoted to eliminating “death, injury, property and economic loss due to fire, electrical and related hazards.” The NFPA currently maintains some 300 standards, which often form defacto regulations in their product categories for states and municipalities in the United States, and, in many cases, adopted as such in localities around the world.

Every industry adheres to a set of standards. These standards ensure that industrial products are manufactured consistently and interact seamlessly. For example, standards are responsible for our ability to make calls and access information on our mobile phones and that our televisions can receive and interpret broadcast signals. The truth is, there are several thousands of standards that affect almost every aspect of our daily lives.

As more factory machines are connected through the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), companies could soon run into a major problem. You’ve probably felt this shift: the promise of improved productivity from these connected machines producing more data requires additional power and space on your factory floor.

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.

With the acquisition of Tripwire in 2015, Belden expanded its industrial cyber security offerings to include proactive security monitoring and regulatory compliance solutions. While Tripwire is a leading security and compliance vendor in a number of different industries, such as retail, government and financial services, what do their solutions bring to ICS security?