Yokogawa and McAfee enter partnership to enhance security of industrial control systems

In particular, the partners will collaborate to offer Yokogawa’s customers seamless solutions to avoid gaps between different IT systems, across proprietary solutions and expanded communication channels (e. g. IP, wireless, and mobile) and running common operating systems and applications.

Growing number of cyberthreats targeting industrial environments

According to McAfee’s recent threats report, cybercrime, “hacktivism” and cyber-warfare are on the rise worldwide, and are growing ever more sophisticated. Governments, large enterprises, small business, and home users face a wide range of digital threats, and recent prominent cases of industrial sabotage and espionage have escalated these concerns.

Today’s cyber-security threats mean that industrial control system users and suppliers alike must be increasingly vigilant against current and future intrusions, as human safety and environmental impacts are directly at stake.

Special emphasis on industrial environments running critical infrastructure

While today’s process control systems can take advantage of advanced general-purpose IT to reduce costs, improve performance, enable interoperability with APC, MES and other systems, and add other important new capabilities, the very same technologies have made today’s industrial control systems increasingly vulnerable to security intrusions – malicious or otherwise – from both within and outside the plant.

Organisations tasked with running critical infrastructure such as oil and gas pipelines, chemical plants, power stations, and water treatment facilities must look at holistic security systems across two disparate, yet interconnected zones: enterprise IT and industrial control systems.

Holistic approach combining Yokogawa’s industrial experience and McAfee’s cybersecurity expertise

McAfee solutions provide resilience, efficient compliance measures, and real-time intelligence for changing threat environments, along with the power of real-time visibility and centralised management through a single platform.The combination of this expertise with Yokogawa’s domain knowledge provides a more holistic approach, resulting in the provision of more value-added industrial automation solutions.

This partnership addresses the issue that industrial process control systems typically have a three to five times longer lifecycle than typical commercial systems. Since both system technology and cyberthreats are ever-changing, automation system suppliers must embrace a life-cycle approach to industrial cyber-security.

“Security measures for control systems are indispensable. Yokogawa is continually making stringent efforts to provide our customers optimum with control system security solutions, starting with the development of highly secure instruments and systems and extending to the provision of operational support services”, said Nobuaki Konishi, Vice President of Yokogawa’s IA Systems Business Division (IA Platform Business Headquarters). “This partnership will allow us to combine our technology and plant security knowhow with McAfee’s technology to enhance the security of our products and our line-up of security solution services covering the entire lifecycle of our customers’ plants. This will include the integration of anti-virus software with industrial control systems used in the process industries”.

“Businesses are looking for integrated security solutions, moving from simply securing components to understanding and measuring the security of a business system as a whole”, said Wahab Yusoff, vice president for McAfee South Asia. “That is why we feel strongly about this opportunity to work with Yokogawa as a leading global supplier of industrial control systems with a history of nearly 100 years of growing expertise and experience.”