ABB announces manual cyber asset inventory obsolete thanks to new automated solution that reduces time, cost and vulnerability for operators
2018-07-18
Today, at PowerGen Africa in Johannesburg, ABB unveils a new solution,ABB Ability™ Cyber Security Asset Inventory, designed to reduce the time, cost and vulnerability associated with managing assets connected to online services, the so called ‘cyber inventory’.ABB Ability™ Cyber Security Asset Inventory will be available from September 2018 for customers in the power and water industry before later being rolled-out to all industries.
Cyber security standards require operators of critical infrastructure to assess their cyber security regularly. Typically, this is done every 12 to 24 months depending upon the corporate policy or national standard. To do this, an operator must first complete an inventory of the software, ports and services they have enabled within their control network. Until now there was no global automated tool available that could collect the information and create such an inventory for an operator’s environment, so they had to either maintain their inventory manually or use consultants to deliver the work. Currently, most companies maintain their cyber security asset inventory in a manual way which is time consuming, expensive, and results in their inventory being incomplete.
The new ABBAbility™solution significantly reduces the need for any manual collection and formatting of asset data. It automatically captures changes in the inventory and updates the industrial cyber asset inventory. Users benefit from an evergreen view to support vulnerability assessment efforts.
For the first time,operations and security teams always have up-to-date cyber asset inventory, helping them to makebetter decisions about cyber security, life-cycle and asset management.
ABB says that automating the cyber security asset inventory process could save companies significant man hours. Susan Peterson-Sturm, ABB’sdigital lead for Power and Watersaid, “Take an 880 MW coal fired plant with 8000 cyber assets. Manually maintaining its cyber asset inventory would require three employees working one to two days a week, the equivalent of around 48 hours weekly, 192 hours monthly, or 2304 hours annually. The automation through ABB Ability™ Cyber Security Asset Inventory significantly reduces labor costs as well as security risk.”
The new solution reduces system vulnerabilities by comparing behaviors. Susan Peterson-Sturm adds, “In order to defend an environment you must first understand it. Knowing expected normal behavior will help spot anything out of the ordinary so rogue devices or applications can be identified. Expected behavior, through documentation and performance data, is crucial in detecting anomalies.
“ABB Ability™Cyber Security Asset Inventory functions across most major control systems in the utilities space without impacting operations. The solution improves the strategic alignment of IT and operations, providing real-time visibility enabling both teams to work together effectively to defend the plant network.”
ABB Ability™ isa unified, cross-industry digital capability that combines deep domain expertise from device to edge to cloud, with unmatched experience in connectivity.
ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally. Continuing a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB today is writing the future of industrial digitalization with two clear value propositions: bringing electricity from any power plant to any plug and automating industries from natural resources to finished products. As title partner of Formula E, the fully electric international FIA motorsport class, ABB is pushing the boundaries of e-mobility to contribute to a sustainable future. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 135,000 employees. www.abb.com