Shell squares up to cyber threat
4 Mar 2015
Yokogawa has paired up with IT systems supplier Cisco Systems to roll out a new global cyber-security platform for Shell.
Shell’s SecurePlant initiative has been jointly developed by the three companies to help the petrochemical company face the wide range of operational challenges that might pose a threat to its future safety and ongoing plant availability.
The companies have agreed to proceed with the implementation of SecurePlant at around fifty Shell plants globally over the next three years.
According to Yokogawa, most companies with global operations take a relatively simplistic plant-by-plant approach, such as implementing operating system security patches and anti-virus pattern file updates.
“As a result, security levels tend to vary at each plant.”
The company added that in the general practice of control system security management, individual system vendors extensively validated security patches and anti-virus pattern files to confirm that they did not interfere with system operation, and then reported the results to their customers for implementation.
“Since plants tend to use a variety of control systems and equipment from different vendors, occasionally with multi-generation platforms from a single vendor, this process is often complicated,” said Yokogawa.
With the aim of standardising security practices at Shell plants around the world and reducing control system vulnerability, Yokogawa and Cisco have collaborated on the design of the SecurePlant service and will jointly provide deployment and operational services.
SecurePlant is designed as a standard solution that combines the delivery of OS patches and anti-virus pattern files for control systems and the provision of real time monitoring of the solution delivery, as well as a help desk operation, the companies said. Supplier-certified Windows security patches and virus signature files are distributed from a SecureCenter to the SecureSite at each plant via Shell’s existing global network.
The real-time and proactive monitoring capabilities have been developed to provide a centralised level of management for plant security.
A customer help desk operated jointly by Yokogawa and Cisco will be available around the clock to manage solution related incidents, the companies said.
