Cyber Security in Industrial Automation & Control
Published on : Monday 30-11--0001
ISA (Maharashtra) section conducted a major Technical Seminar on “Cyber Security in Industrial Automation & Control” on 24th February 2018 at Hotel Fortune Park Lake City, Thane, which attracted 92 delegates from various process industries. The event was inaugurated by Dr B R Mehta (Senior Vice President – RIL) and Mr Sanjeev Rasal (MD – IDEMI) was the keynote speaker. The seminar was attended by very senior personnel and stalwarts from the industry. The technical sessions were so engrossing that practically all the delegates actively participated in various deliberations.
The technical sessions were delivered by eminent speakers from this field and the complete seminar was classified into 3 sessions, viz.,
1. Introduction, vulnerability assessment, certification, program management and standards.
2. Industry experts’ views and new trends in cyber security.
3. Cyber security case studies.
Session 1 was dedicated to cover the following topics:
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Introduction to Industrial Automation Control Systems (IACS) cyber security.
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Cyber security lifecycle overview.
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Control system vulnerability assessment.
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IACS cyber security program management.
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The evolving IEC 62443 standards & certification.
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Approach to cyber security lifecycle for existing & new facilities.
Mr Sudhir Pai – Country Manager-India from EXIDA covered all the above topics very effectively and professionally. He kept the audience on the toes with his vast knowledge on the subject and was ready to answer all the queries raised by the delegates. He ensured that all participants were fully engrossed on the subject, by giving some live examples. He outlined how cyber threat takes place from various devices and methods to block such threats. He also gave an insight to the roles of IT & OT in cyber threats.
Session 2 was dedicated to Experts’ views on key aspects and new trends in cyber security. There were 3 speakers from industry:
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Mr P V Sivaram – Non executive Chairman of B&R Industrial Automation, who gave a presentation on Open Technologies & Decoy devices to achieve cyber security. This was also a great topic, as he outlined the probable threats to the industry due to cyber security lapses.
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Mr Gigi Joseph – Chief Information Security Officer, BARC. He is a recipient of Dr Homi Sethna Award and his presentation on cyber security was absolutely smashing. He outlined the various steps adopted by BARC to prevent cyber attacks and also gave a live demonstration of how threats are induced on the systems and how this corrupts the device and extract information from our system, be it technical or financial. He also mentioned that they have developed cyber safe systems, especially mails and given to ECIL for marketing, which is a great Make in India concept.
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Mrs Asha Durafe – Research Associate and Professor with Shah & Anchor College of Engineering. She gave presentation on Digital Steganography and its application in cyber security. Steganography literally means secret writing as security in data communication is a very important concern today. It is used in almost every region like e-commerce, education, and industry and data warehouse etc. The goal of steganography is to hide information by concealing it into some other medium like image, audio or video so that only the sender and the intended recipient know the existence of information in communication. She also explained the various stego tools used to create the stego files.
Session 3 was dedicated to industry expert’s view on case studies related to cyber threats and security. There were two speakers from user industry and two other from prominent vendors:
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Mr R N Mohanty – President, Pidilite Industries. He gave a presentation of Cyber threats on their control system and precautionary measures taken to prevent such cyber threats. He also explained the methodology adopted by their company to implement such system.
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Mr Jitender Walia – Sr Manager, Reliance Industries Ltd. He gave an overall perspective of how they achieved cyber safe system at their Jamnagar Refinery (J3 Project). He also clearly explained the various steps and processes involved in achieving the objective. RIL has implemented cyber safe system not only for their control system but also for critical systems like ESD and F&G. Apart from implementing a cyber safe system, he also explained the various procedures/steps being followed on a day-to-day basis to maintain the system, with proper authentication layers.
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Mr Gaurav Shanbhag and Mr Shalin Shah – Managers, Siemens India. They explained the various products developed by Siemens and which are embedded on their DCS & SCADA systems, which are cyber safe. He also explained how they could support any customer from cyber attacks on their control systems. They also explained the procedural part of attaining cyber safe system and how Siemens would be beneficial to the customers.
The seminar ended with vote of thanks. It was a great pleasure and satisfaction for ISA(M) to host this successful event.
Captions
Pix1: (L-R) Sanjeev Rasal, MD – IDEMI; Dr B R Mehta, Senior VP – RIL; and C S Limaye, Director, Supertech Instrumentation Services.
Pix2: (L-R) H S Gambhir, Reliance Industries; V P Raman, VP-Operations, TECTON Engineering & Construction LLC, and ISA District 14 VP; and Shalin Shah and Gaurav Shanbhag, Managers, Siemens India.
Pix3: (L-R) V P Raman; Sudhir Pai – Country Manager – India, EXIDA; and C S Limaye.
Pix4: (L-R) R N Mohanty – President, Pidilite Industries; and Balwant Godbole, Team Lead, Rockwell Automation.
Pix5: Gigi Joseph – Chief Information Security Officer, BARC.
Pix6: Asha Durafe – Research Associate and Professor with Shah & Anchor College of Engineering.
Pix7: Jitender Walia – Sr Manager, Reliance Industries Ltd.
ISA
Maharashtra, India