How confident are your customers with the level of security on their controls network? Are you confident they are educated and capable of following best practices to protect their “big data” upon completion of a project delivered by you? Does their process meet the latest functional safety standards?
Maybe your customers are not requesting this from you as their control system integrator of choice, but it is an important topic worth discussion. Blame can sometimes be put on the wrong party if a malicious attack to a network or an accident occurs to a safety system after a recent project is completed.
Due to the lack of understanding in these specific areas many times customers are completely lost when trying to track where these types of events and failures occur?
Cyber threats and safety are a daily concern for any industrial facility but even more important for critical controls systems. While totally removing the threat of an injury, or an unwanted guest on your network is nearly impossible, there are measures you can take to help protect yourself and others in your process. Most companies do not have the resources or knowledge to provide guidance in these areas and do not have the capability to do assessments.
“Where do I start?”
“How can I identify vulnerabilities?”
Phoenix Contact has recently partnered with exida to provide these specialty services for our customers. “Through this partnership, exida provides Phoenix Contact with an extensive assessment offering that can help our customers improve their business,” said Spencer Bolgard, vice president and general manager of Phoenix Contact USA. “The expertise provided by exida is a valuable service to our customers and significantly complements our safety and cybersecurity solutions.” “As part of exida’s growth strategy, we have been looking to partner with a select group of companies, as a means of enhancing both companies’ product and service offerings,” said Steve Gandy, exida vice president of global business development. “Phoenix Contact has a reputation for providing quality products and services to the functional safety and industrial control system cybersecurity markets, which complements exida’s portfolio of products and services. We are very pleased to be partnering with such a strong and innovative company as Phoenix Contact.”
The system integrator community works very closely with the end users who are typically in need of these types of services as malicious attacks become more and more common in the industrial world. Leave this to the experts at exida. They provide professional end user and OEM system consulting, product testing and certification, as well as assessment services for cybersecurity, functional safety and alarm management. Customers may be more open to discussing these important topics with a 3rd party entity with proven expertise.
Just want to learn more about these topics? Training and individual certifications are available as well.
Click here to learn more about the services you can now offer to your customers through Phoenix Contact and exida.