GAMBICA forms industrial network security group 03 May 2013

GAMBICA has formed an industrial network security group to identify standards and best practice to help counter the threats of viruses, industrial sabotage and terrorism.

Steve Brambley, deputy director of GAMBICA, says that the new group already has 19 members and came about as a result of feedback from other group members.

"I put out a proposal to GAMBIA's membership and within hours got messages back from about 15 member companies saying they were definitely interested in participating in such a group," explains Brambley.

"We had an exploratory meeting where it was determined that the industry is interested in spreading best practice among both vendors and their customer base," he continues.

Brambley says that 'defence-in-depth' is what is needed, "because there is no single solution to industrial network security".

For Brambley, the problem is systematic. "Industrial network system security is just part of the wider topic of security and needs to be integrated, not treated separately. There is no point in having an uncrackable password protection system, if people write them on sticky notes and put them on their screens."

Brambley also points out that industrial networks are rarely managed in the same way as enterprise networks – instead falling under different areas of responsibility.

"At some point later in its life, the engineering department may decide it wants to connect some manufacturing cells to get production information out onto the IT network," he explains. "

"This can introduce vulnerability if the cells are managed by a PC with an old version of Windows that has not been updated... Industrial network systems need to be dealt with differently from IT networks in a business."

Brambley concludes that security measures need to recognise the needs of the system and that the automation industry has a part to play as the experts in integrating their own systems into a wider security policy.

Brian Tinham

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GAMBICA Association Ltd

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