Safety and Security in Industrial Communication
Based on know-how on communication standards and on experiences with the application of formal description techniques, ifak is part of the specification of safety profiles for open communication systems. The development of certified functionally safe devices requires taking the entire lifecycle of hardware and software into account. ifak investigates UML as a formal method for software development which consists of requirement specification, functional specification for modules and whole systems, code generation for different embedded targets and test and validation.
ifak is also part of the specification of uniform methods, danger analysis as well as classification of risks, based on knowledge about requirements concerning security in automation as well as procedures and solutions for the guarantee of security in open communications networks. Users are supported by a selection of adequate secure (e.g. cryptographic) solutions. Beyond that, ifak also helps the integration of security mechanism into the automation solution by offering secure modules for embedded systems.
Safety
Apart from the industrial standards of digital communication systems already introduced e.g. PROFIBUS, more and more requirements concerning sensitive applications must be fulfilled in the future. Thus e.g. the PROFIsafe profile fulfills the requirements of the standard International Electronical Commission (IEC) 61508 with SIL3 particularly for PROFIBUS. The first PROFIsafe devices have been certified and have already been applied in harsh industrial environments. In the future sensitive applications will play a large role, the efforts to specify profiles for the new Ethernet based communication systems such as PROFINET are very large. The introduction of indutrial Ethernet based communication systems are in progress and the first devices have already been installed. Apart from the specification of safety relevant profiles, questions in the sense of security are to be answered.
Security
One reason for the intensive treatment of the topic industrial security lies in the use of public networks for industrial automation, e.g. for remote engineering. Today's public long-distance networks not only have wire-bound but also wireless communication technol-ogies. The advantages such as flexibility, mobility and availability are clearly obvious, however subjevt to the employment of reliable solutions in the sense of security. Numerous activities have been started in order to specify e.g. use cases, which serve as a starting point for the determination of security requirements and for the definition of security classes.
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