News

Rockwell Automation Expands Security Portfolio to Tackle Industrial Cyber Threats

December 04, 2020 by Alessandro Mascellino

Rockwell Automation obtained new certifications and expanded its industrial cybersecurity products.

The new products feature Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) Security to aid companies to secure their communication on an EtherNet/IP network. The certifications are the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) 62443-3-3 cybersecurity standard, and the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 27001 standard.

 

High Cybersecurity Standards

TÜV Rheinland, a product certification services company, awarded Rockwell the 62443-3-3 certification. This certification was developed by the ISA99 committee and later adopted by the IEC.

The certification describes a flexible framework intended to address and mitigate current and future security vulnerabilities in industrial automation and control systems.

After achieving the certification, Rockwell Automation can now install and configure production systems to meet security requirements to level 1, as described by the document.

 

Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 755T AC drives. Image courtesy of Rockwell Automation.

 

The ISO 27001 standard provides requirements for an information security management system necessary to manage the security of financial information, intellectual property, employee details, or information entrusted by third parties.

Rockwell noted that achieving this certification will help the company protect intellectual property and give its customers peace of mind when using remote support and monitoring services.
 

New Industrial Control Products

Rockwell announced the new industrial control products last week are the Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 755T AC drives and the Kinetix 5300 servo drives. Both offer CIP Security, but the drives have different specifications and are intended for various applications.

The Allen-Bradley PowerFlex 755T AC drives were manufactured to provide harmonic mitigation, regeneration, and common bus solutions focusing on energy cost reduction, increased flexibility, and improved productivity. 

The drives are the first to offer Rockwell’s TotalFORCE technology, designed to provide precise, adaptive control of velocity, torque, and position for electric motors.

 

The Kinetix 5300 servo drives.  Image courtesy of Rockwell Automation.


 

The Kinetix 5300 servo drives are intended for motion control applications using small to medium machines. Offering various design flexibility options, these drives provide native integration with Rockwell Automation Logix control, and feature a comprehensive power range, dual ethernet ports, and hardwired Safe Torque Off.

The Kinetix 5300 drives can also be paired with Rockwell’s Kinetix TLP motor and matching 2090-CT servo cables for a solution capable of minimizing sizing efforts and reducing implementation time.

 

Enabling CIP Security Applications

The term refers to security-related requirements and capabilities for CIP devices, specifically those using EtherNet/IP interfaces.

A CIP-connected device will be able to protect itself from malicious communications by rejecting data that has been altered, messages sent by untrusted people or untrusted devices, and messages requesting actions that are not allowed. CIP Security for EtherNet/IP devices follows the IETF-standard TLS (RFC 5246) and DTLS (RFC 6347) protocols to provide secure transport for EtherNet and IP traffic.

In addition to the products released by Rockwell Automation last week, the company also offers other solutions supporting CIP Security, including its ControlLogix 5580 controllers, Kinetix 5700 servo drives 1756-EN4TR communication modules.

Rockwell Automation is introducing another solution to help protect devices that don’t support CIP Security.


 

Rockwell’s new CIP Security Proxy device can be used in a physically secured location to provide CIP Security for a wide range of industrial control devices, creating more secure industrial networks.