Siemens Protects Against Industrial Control System Hacks

Dec. 11, 2013
Managed Security Service Continuously Protects Production Environments

Siemens Industry is offering a new security service to U.S. customers that will continuously protect production environments.

Managed Security Services include assessment of security posture, implementation of recommended security measures and transitions into ongoing defense against rapidly evolving cybersecurity threats in Industrial Control System (ICS) environments, according to Siemens.

Siemens aims to partner with customers to improve sustainable security programs. Siemens's Industrial Security Services group expanded on the company's security portfolio by providing ongoing protection to manufacturing sites.

Industrial Control System (ICS) environments require a different level of security than those of corporate IT. Security availability is a key goal in production environments. Protection of the people, process and equipment ensures uninterrupted production while maximizing uptime.

Serious results from a cyber attack include health, safety and ICS environmental impacts along with manipulation of data, IP theft, sabotage of production and plant down time.

"Global cyber threats are rapidly evolving, and it also takes continuous and comprehensive action to protect production environments," says Jagannath Rao, president of Industry Customer Services. "This new managed service will allow customers to stay focused on their core business while entrusting the implementation of their security program to Siemens as a knowledgeable partner."

In order to truly achieve industrial security, a company must overcome several additional challenges. Some of these include, a lack of qualified individuals to design, implement and respond to incidents; rapid increase in number of industrial security threats and attacks; lack of global threat intelligence to enable pro-active defensive measures; insufficient data to make business decision based upon risk; and emerging government rules and regulations, according to Siemens.

"Companies are understanding that cybersecurity commands the attention of those at the helm of the enterprise because of its sheer gravity and magnitude," said Raj Batra, president of Siemens Industry Automation. "With that C-level focus, the rest of the enterprise quickly follows suit, but they need help, and that's where vendors like Siemens come in."