Industry 4.0 is the German government’s strategy to promote the computerization of the manufacturing industry. This strategy foresees that industrial production in the future will be based on highly flexible mass production processes that allow rich customization of products. This future will also include the extensive integration of customers and business partners to provide business and value-added processes. It will link production with high-quality services to create so-called “hybrid products”.

At the same time, in the US, the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition is working on their vision for “Smart Manufacturing”. In 2013 the UK the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing, which is part of the University of Nottingham, received a grant of £4.6M for a study on Technologies for Future Smart Factories.

This vision depends upon the manufacturing machinery and tools containing embedded computer systems that will communicate with each other inside the enterprise, and with partners and suppliers across the internet. This computerization and communication will enable optimization within the organizations, as well as improving the complete value adding chain in near real time through the use of intelligent monitoring and autonomous decision making processes. This is expected to lead to the development of completely new business models as well as exploiting the considerable potential for optimization in the fields of production and logistics.

However there are risks, and organizations adopting this technology need to be aware of and manage these risks. Compromising the manufacturing processes could have far reaching consequences. These consequences include the creation of flawed or dangerous end products as well as disruption of the supply chain. Even when manufacturing processes based on computerized machinery are physically isolated they can still be compromised through maladministration, inappropriate changes and infected media. Connecting these machines to the internet will only increase the potential threats and the risks involved.

Here are some key points to securely exploiting this vision:

• Take a Holistic Approach: the need for security is no longer confined to the IT systems, the business systems of record but needs to extend to cover everywhere that data is created, transmitted or exploited. Take a holistic approach and avoid creating another silo.
• Take a Risk based approach: The security technology and controls that need to be built should be determined by balancing risk against rewards based on the business requirements, the assets at risk together with the needs for compliance as well as the organizational risk appetite. This approach should seek to remove identifiable vulnerabilities and put in place appropriate controls to manage the risks.
• Trusted Devices: This is the most immediate concern since many devices that are being deployed today are likely to be in use, and hence at risk, for long periods into the future. These devices must be designed and manufactured to be trustworthy. They need an appropriate level of physical protection as well as logical protection against illicit access and administration. It is highly likely that these devices will become a target for cyber criminals who will seek to exploit any weaknesses through malware. Make sure that they contain protection that can be updated to accommodate evolving threats.
• Trusted Data: The organization needs to be able to trust the data from this. It must be possible to confirm the device from which the data originated, and that this data has not been tampered with or intercepted. There is existing low power secure technology and standards that have been developed for mobile communications and banking, and these should be appropriately adopted or adapted to secure the devices.
• Identity and Access Management – to be able to trust the devices and the data they provide means being able to trust their identities and control access. There are a number of technical challenges in this area; some solutions have been developed for some specific kinds of device however there is no general panacea. Hence it is likely that more device specific solutions will emerge and this will add to the general complexity of the management challenges.

More information on this subject can be found in Advisory Note: Security and the Internet of Everything and Everyone – 71152 – KuppingerCole

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