A strong technology partnership boosts cybersecurity for industrial companies

[MattQuirk]

Imagine an industrial company that runs a manufacturing plant. This large operation is complex, relying on  a distributed control system (DCS) to manage and automate its machinery and production processes. A network infrastructure connects these DCS components, allowing for real-time data transmission between different parts of the plant and headquarters. Meanwhile, data is sent from the production line to central servers for analysis, and the DCS integrates with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to manage resources, supply chain logistics, inventory, and production scheduling.

All of these interconnected technologies mean a breach in one area could easily escalate into a problem that affects the entire operation. To prevent this, industrial powerhouse ABB works together with global technology leader Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to offer industrial companies innovative support, security, and solutions.

ABB specializes in bringing high-quality industrial control and automation software to industries such as power, oil and gas, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, metals and minerals, marine, pulp and paper, and waste. The market leader in distributed control systems (DCS), ABB also helps its customers get more from their technology through digital services such as cloud-based industrial analytics.

Meanwhile, HPE OEM Solutions helps industrial organizations connect and protect their systems, enabling them to unlock new insights, improve operational performance, and develop new ways to conduct business securely.

Click here to skip to the full story.

How ABB and HPE empower secure digital insights

Through the long-running partnership between ABB and HPE OEM Solutions, industrial companies can benefit from the combined power of ABB’s operational technology (OT) experience and HPE’s informational technology (IT) expertise.

Together, ABB and HPE OEM help organizations turn their Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data into actionable insights to improve operations. Plus, they enable organizations to build a secure industrial cyber security (ICS) infrastructure.

For its part, ABB offers companies a tried-and-true risk reduction road map, which centers around the ABB ICS Cyber Security Reference Architecture. This helps customers ensure their control systems are safe and compliant.

ABB’s ICS system management layer runs on HPE security-optimized servers. Plus, with HPE GreenLake, companies get an on-premises cloud-like consumption model within their secure environment, helping maximize uptime and accelerate time to resolution for issues.

Security with the end customer in mind

HPE OEM Solutions aims to ensure ABB’s end customers have a highly protected IT environment. To do this, they provide:

• A trusted supply chain: HPE ProLiant is engineered with an end-to-end security approach to defend against complex threats. The HPE Trusted Supply Chain helps ensure corruption-free manufacturing and secure servers.
• Advanced server security: HPE ProLiant servers offer unprecedented levels of protection against firmware attacks with innovations like the silicon root of trust from HPE. All HPE ProLiant Gen11 Servers also incorporate encryption technologies so data is protected at rest as well as in-flight.
• Verified security during solution development: Instead of heading directly to an end customer, HPE ships its servers to an ABB site, so they can be built up and tested in a completely secure environment.
• HPE GreenLake for Compute Ops Management: Once ABB sends the solution to the end customer, HPE GreenLake empowers the business with a secure and scalable management platform to facilitate secure device onboarding, inventory and health monitoring, power control, and firmware management on the HPE servers.

With ABB and HPE, industrial companies benefit from the expertise and cybersecurity technology of two global leaders. As part of the partnership, the DCS solutions get tested extensively before delivery, helping ensure customers receive one of the most secure DCS solutions on the market.

Read more about the partnership and imagine what it can do for you here.

Learn more about how ABB can help you improve your end-to-end industrial cybersecurity here.