Siemens launches cyber security platform

The Siemens’ Managed Security Service (MSS) has been developed to continuously protect production environments from cyber-attack. Designed for the assessment of security posture, implementation of recommended security measures and transitions into ongoing defence against rapidly evolving cyber security threats in Industrial Control System (ICS) environments, the service will be launched in Europe and Asia once it has been introduced to the US market.

Global cyber threats are rapidly evolving and it also takes continuous and comprehensive action to protect production environments

Siemens’ Jagannath Rao

The system is configured so that Siemens can partner with customers to help them build sustainable industrial security programmes, by leveraging expertise in automation and industrial cyber security.

President of industry customer services Jagannath Rao said: “Global cyber threats are rapidly evolving and it also takes continuous and comprehensive action to protect production environments.”

The specific requirements for security of an ICS environment differ from the enterprise requirements of corporate IT.

In a production environment, availability is a key security goal. To ensure uninterrupted production and maximised uptime requires comprehensive protection of the people, processes and equipment.

The impacts of a successful attack can be serious, and include health, safety and ICS environmental impacts along with manipulation of data, IP theft, sabotage of production and plant down time.

Siemens said its MSS is designed so that customers can move away from point solutions for security to a comprehensive security programme delivered through MSS, making security part of a plant’s ongoing life cycle.

Following Siemens’ launch of its new service yesterday, Imperial College London announced today that it will launch a new institute to explore potential threats to the infrastructure that controls a range of processes, from nuclear power generation, to manufacturing, to energy distribution and the national rail network. 

Researchers at the newly-created Research Institute into Trustworthy ICS will analyse how cyber-attacks that could shut down ICSs can be prevented or counteracted.

Director of the Research Institute Chris Hankin said: “Our ICS are vital for running most of the industrial processes that underpin modern society. From electricity generation to making sure trains run on time, these systems are vital to our everyday lives, but more work needs to be done to determine how vulnerable they are threats from cyber-attack.

“Research at Imperial’s institute will focus on working out what the potential dangers are, so that new technologies and procedures can be designed to mitigate them in the future.”