security Archives - Flowmetrics

Industrial Internet of Things Improvements | Flowmetrics

Sensors, actuators, and controls systems have been critical and individual to each industrial company. From the control of specific proprietary processes to monitoring the state of a piece of equipment, these systems have solved unique problems for each company. With the entrance of the industrial internet of things, or IIoT, these custom made systems will be developed to accommodate as many applications as possible into each piece. Some new insights to look forward to include;

Much more context to equipment states. What is the ambient temperature and humidity for each piece of equipment? What percent of maximum run speed is the equipment set at to adapt to these conditions?
A shift from reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance. With a schedule of repairs accurate to the number of cycles, equipment can be serviced to continue operations efficiently instead of bringing broken units back online.
Real-time mapping of raw materials, intermediates, and personnel. A more accurate count of what materials are on hand, how quickly the process is running, and monitoring employees for safety will vastly reduce the overhead and liability of processing facilities.

Energy efficiency and sustainability gains are possible with the integration of smart machines, smart monitoring, and smart environmental controls.

Click here for the complete list and full article by Shelia Kennedy.

VoicePrint Technology to Improve Network Security | Flowmetrics

Human voices are unique to the individual and current technology has been used to restrict access to authorized personnel using voices as authentication. Now by identifying the voices of devices on control networks a possible new defense would filter legitimate signals and attacks.

“We have developed fingerprinting techniques that work together to protect various operations of the power grid to prevent or minimize spoofing of packets that could be injected to produce false data or false control commands into the system. This is the first technique that can passively fingerprint different devices that are part of critical infrastructure networks. We believe it can be used to significantly improve the security of the grid and other networks.” -Raheem Beyah Georgia Institute of Technology

The security techniques take advantage of the individual physical properties of each unique device. Security devices listening to the grid would differentiate devices that were authenticated to the grid, and identify illegitimate “noise” within the system. Furthermore, the system can use simple physics to flush out spoofing attempts. Depending on the physical configuration of breakers and valves, opening and closing procedures take a minimum amount of time. If a device gets a signal to open or close too soon after the last signal security staff would be notified of a possible attack.

Because they also include devices with measurable physical properties, Beyah believes the approach could have broad application to securing industrial control systems used in manufacturing, oil and gas refining, wastewater treatment and other industries.

Click here for the full article from Control Engineering.