Industrial Ethernet Security Harmonization Group publishes first whitepaper on security

Standards development organizations OPC Foundation, PI, ODVA and FieldComm Group have released their joint working group’s first whitepaper, Industrial Ethernet Security Harmonization Group (IESHG).

The IESHG meets on a regular basis to discuss security topics in the industrial automation context. The goal of the working group is the alignment of industrial ethernet security concepts, so that end users of the protocols have less complexity when using security in their automation systems.

The IESHG’s first whitepaper covers different topics of the security concepts of industrial automation environments. General concepts are explained in an FAQ, like Public-key infrastructures, the different certificate types of the SDOs, as well as certificate management tools.

The group is currently working on further concepts that will lead to further whitepapers.

“The end user and legal security requirements for industrial ethernet technologies accelerate at a high speed in these days. With the IESHG, we ensure that the security concepts of our SDOs lead to harmonized and easy-to-use secure solutions. With this great group of security experts, we pave the security road for technological advancements, like Ethernet-APL in combination with our industrial ethernet technologies,” said Simon Merklin from Endress+Hauser and IESHG group leader.

The whitepaper is available here.