Despite the high interest enjoyed by the concept of Industry 4.0 in Italy, thanks also to the strong economic incentives made available by the government, the manufacturing sector seems to focus primarily on needs such as the remote control of operations and the monitoring of existing systems, rather than on a broader transformation towards a new generation industry. One of the highly underestimated aspects from this point of view is the assessment of the risks associated with a timely approach to innovation rather than planned within an overall vision of digital transformation.
Most industrial control systems such as SCADA, were designed starting from the 90s and in the first part of the 2000 systems, in a closed way and without connection to the outside. The technical infrastructure of the factory, also known as the OT infrastructure, in fact, in most cases has been kept physically separate from the IT one, both because the technologies used in the two worlds were, and in part still are, very different, but also for practical reasons, such as avoiding overloading IT networks, which in past years suffered from bandwidth problems. While this has also reduced potential safety exposures on the one hand, it has slowed down the adoption of innovative monitoring systems for industrial systems on the other.
Industry 4.0 drives towards IT/OT convergence
Today, the adoption of communication technologies from an Industry 4.0 perspective can no longer be postponed and this implies the need to connect industrial devices, also through revamping, or adaptation to the most modern technologies, which include, for example, the possibility of use wireless protocols and more generally Edge computing technologies to effectively transfer data on cloud analysis platforms. The business goal is to increase the productivity and efficiency of production systems by being able to constantly monitor the systems even remotely and receiving timely and even predictive information regarding possible malfunctions. For example, a Monitoring system adhering to the Industry4.0 objectives must be able to receive data and reports on any type of mobile device (smartphone, tablet, notebook) and send commands directly to machinery from the same devices and/or immediately activate maintenance procedures. provided for by the specific cases.
Hence, the need to adopt governance methodologies and assessment techniques that guarantee correct IT/OT convergence.
Security, time for a new vision
However, this means that organizations also need to acknowledge that the boundary between IT and OT networks that control equipment in critical infrastructure such as industrial plants is becoming increasingly blurred, and this requires a new vision of security networks, which takes into account the specificities of both types of networks and manages them in an integrated manner.
Whereas previously OT networks were naturally protected from being disconnected, today the need to connect devices not originally designed to be disconnected can create serious exposures to the general security of the company, and risks to the safety of both IT and OT systems.
It is with this vision oriented towards integration, that Gruppo SIGLA (a company of the Relatech Group), with many years of experience and high IT and OT skills, is a partner able to support its customers in the orchestration of the various technologies that contribute to company safety.
Gruppo SIGLA has also carefully selected a set of technologies that cooperate with each other and with those that may already be present at the Customer, allowing it to support the implementation phase of cybersecurity projects.
The company boasts numerous technological partnerships that strengthen the ecosystem of the Relatech Group and that allow the development of multiple projects in different industrial sectors on specific issues related to IT security, also making use of frontier technologies such as Artificial Intelligence used for the protection of industrial installations of relevant multinational groups.
The Relatech Group, thanks to the skills and experience of Gruppo SIGLA, is thus able to provide its customers with a complete and safe answer to the issue of industry 4.0 thanks to its ReFab4.0 solution. In fact, it provides safe connection functions of industrial systems, secure end-to-end data acquisition and transfer on the cloud platform for analysis and representation of real-time and predictive analysis dashboards both on web and mobile interface, as well as the possibility of using augmented and virtual reality tools to facilitate plant inspection and maintenance activities. Thanks to the skills of the Group companies, Mediatech and Gruppo SIGLA, Relatech can follow and support the customer in the complete process that goes from the design of the overall system architecture to the implementation of the identified solution up to the training both for the complete use IT infrastructure security OT.
