Efficient Plant Jan./Feb. 2023 - 19

feature | supply chain cybersecurity
Keep Asset Data Secure
Partner with third-party vendors that prioritize security best practices and protocols.
Brent Nelson and Kirk Haddad
Donaldson
INDUSTRIAL FACILITY-MANAGEMENT TEAMS are looking
for ways to do more with less. A tight labor market, constant
pressure to improve uptime and elevate production, and increasingly
complex assets are driving the need for more real-time data
and diagnostics. Many industrial leaders are deploying internal and
external IIoT solutions and services to address these needs.
The solutions are providing remote and real-time access to critical
machine data and helping create efficiencies for plant maintenance
and engineering teams. They are also fostering collaboration among
an ecosystem of partners to help identify and address potential issues
before breakdowns and unplanned maintenance occurs.
When IIoT solutions are developed and deployed, it becomes
essential to rule out any possible security vulnerabilities within internal
control systems or operational networks. Equally important is
JAN/FEB 2023
ensuring the data captured and stored is only accessible to authorized
personnel, since most industrial users lack data or network
security expertise. Here are three ways to keep your data secure
when deploying external IIoT solutions.
ISOLATE THIRD-PARTY SOLUTIONS
The best way to keep your internal control systems and operation
networks secure is to isolate third-party IIoT solutions from your
networks. Any device or software that connects to your internal
networks, either locally or through the cloud, represents a potential
security vulnerability. These vulnerabilities are of high concern
because they put not just the data from the IIoT solution at risk, but
potentially all of your operational data and systems.
One solution is to use a secure, isolated cellular interface to transEFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM
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Efficient Plant Jan./Feb. 2023

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