Yokogawa has collaborated with Cisco to deliver comprehensive security management solution SecurePlant for plant control systems at the Shell’s facilities over the next three years
The SecurePlant solution is designed as a standard solution that consists of the delivery of OS patches and anti-virus pattern files for control systems and the provision of real time and proactive monitoring of solution delivery, as well as a help desk operation to manage this solution.
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 enable the centralised management of plant security. A customer help desk operated jointly by Yokogawa and Cisco is available 24/7 all year-round to manage solution related incidents.
Industrial producers around the world face a wide range of operational challenges in areas such as cybersecurity that pose a pervasive threat to safety and availability. Most companies with global operations, however, still 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.
In the general practice of control system security management, individual control system vendors extensively validate security patches and anti-virus pattern files to confirm that they do not interfere with system operation, and then report 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.
For this reason, plants increasingly have the need for plant-wide integrated services that take a more holistic and efficient approach to the management of system security.
Yokogawa and Cisco will also continue to offer comprehensive security solutions involving the deployment, operation and monitoring of control system environments. The services are applicable to plants of all sizes in a wide variety of industries, including facilities spread out over a large geographic area.
In addition, both companies will leverage their technologies and experience to develop deep industrial automation (IA) solutions such as remote system maintenance, remote plant asset management and big cata on the top of a secure remote access platform to help companies in making faster decisions, reducing total cost of ownership (TCO), and achieving operational excellence.
