Wind River Blog Network

Securing Critical Infrastructure with MILS

By Paul Chen

On February 12, the White House released the Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21), Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. The DHS website describes PPD-21 as “advancing a national policy to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure.” Sixteen different critical infrastructure sectors are identified, including: Chemical, Communications, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare and Public Health, Food and Agriculture, Nuclear Reactors, Transportation, and Water and Wastewater Systems.

On the same day PPD-21 was released, President Obama also signed Executive Order 13636 for “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity.” The Executive Order directs NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) to develop a framework for “reducing cyber risks to critical infrastructure,” for which they have issued an RFI and plan a workshop in late May.

And on March 26, the BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, the German Federal Office for Information Security) published the Protection Profile for the Gateway of a Smart Metering System. Such devices will securely collect, process, and store information from smart meters, adding security to smart electricity distribution grids. The protection profile notes that the threat from a remote cyberattack is much higher than that from a local physical attack, since the attacker in network has the potential to compromise not just one, but many components of the infrastructure, or even the corresponding grid.

These developments highlight the focus on improving critical infrastructure security as attacks from cyber-terrorism have increased over the last decade and, alarmingly, in the past year on power, water, and nuclear systems. A recent report states that, indeed, most cyber-attacks now target critical infrastructure, moving “away from hacking and financially motivated crime” to attacks to “deny, disrupt, and destroy” service. For most of us, even the most destructive cyber-attacks like Stuxnet are fairly remote and don’t impact us; but if critical infrastructure services are denied, disrupted, or destroyed, cyber-attacks could become devastatingly personal.

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Industrial Automation and the Cloud

By Alexander Damisch

We’re hearing so much about the cloud lately – and I get asked often what cloud computing means in the context of industrial automation and about the benefits delivered, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my thoughts on the cloud as it pertains to industrial automation.  It's a topic I recently covered in a Q&A session for the Intel Embedded Community.

As embedded devices are increasingly connected to the enterprise, arguably the most cost-effective way to implement these systems is via cloud architecture. Within industrial automation, clear targets for a cloud architecture are typical IT components like manufacturing execution systems (MES) and production planning systems (PPS).  There is no need for discrete servers in industrial automation environments that perform functions for only a few machines or manufacturing processes, when they can be performed as cloud services, and thus operated more efficiently.

In industrial automation, the shift to cloud computing is causing a disruption in the embedded space by changing key paradigms regarding data and the location of intelligence.  Specifically, the cloud is affecting the architecture of IT structures (moving from a fixed client server architecture, to a distributed architecture with local and global intelligence), and it is also impacting machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in the embedded cloud. 

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Wind River and Android – 5 great years, with many more to come

By Dan Noal

It was 5 years ago this week that I got an email from our CEO who had just met with Andy Rubin and Rich Miner at the Googleplex. Google had invited us to talk privately and confidentially about what would become Android.  Other companies were already on board, and they asked us to join the small group of companies collaborating with them as part of the nascent Open Handset Alliance. They talked big about disrupting the entire mobile phone ecosystem and solving the fragmentation problem with so many competing Linux based phone stacks emerging at that time. They painted a vision where open source Android would dominate the mobile phone space and migrate to adjacent markets.  We knew that they had credibility from Danger, we knew that Google had tremendous momentum and power they could leverage.  We discussed it internally, and without much debate we replied “where do we sign?” and started to roll up our sleeves. 

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Beyond the Smart Grid: Intelligent Energy

By Jeff Fortin

This past week I was at DistribuTECH 2012 and was able to see firsthand how companies supplying to the energy market are responding to Smart Grid requirements and adapting to the market needs that the Smart Grid is creating. There was a diverse array of companies in attendance demonstrating their interpretation of the future of energy -- from ABB, a veteran to the energy market, to Ceiva, who has developed an innovative approach to home energy management using their familiar electronic picture frame technology.

Wind River demonstrated a model of a wind turbine system that was controlled by the Bachmann M1 Controller System. The M1 Controller System includes modules for Digital and Analog I/O,  Network Connectivity, Fieldbuses, Safety, and a Processor Module. The Bachmann M1 Processor Module provides a robust, scalable and flexible solution for applications ranging from classical PLCs to enabling connectivity to the IT cloud, and leverages a range of Intel processors and runs Wind River’s VxWorks RTOS. By combining the processing suite offered by Intel and Wind River, the M1 can be used in applications requiring any combination of PLCs, motion controllers, connectivity and data management. The M1 is not limited to wind turbine applications -- it could be used in range of energy applications that require a safe, secure and reliable intelligent device.

   

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Wind River Discusses Security and Safety Offerings with ICC Media

By Amanda Lowe

At IPC/SPS/Drives in November, Alexander Damisch, Wind River's Director, Industrial Solutions, sat down for an interview with ICC Media to discuss our recent collaborations with Wurldtech and ISaGRAF. 

Click on the video link below to learn more about the latest offerings. 

 

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SPS/IPC/Drives, Security and Safety

By Alexander Damisch

The annual SPS/IPC/Drives event was held in Nuremberg last week, this event brings together the global leaders in automation space, including Bachmann, KW Software, ABB, Siemens, Rockwell, Yaskawa and Schneider Electric to name a few! Some key themes emanating at the event included: innovation, energy efficiency, machine-to-machine, security and safety.

Wind River made several exciting announcements at this year’s faire.

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Cloud to Service Endpoints – The Missing Link

By Paul Anderson

I remember as a kid I was fascinated with phones. The idea that you could pick up the phone, dial it, and talk to someone on the other end was pretty neat. And… at the time, a phone was an elegantly designed electro-mechanical work of art, and it was fun to take them apart to try and figure out how they worked. I could understand how the phone itself worked, but as a kid, what happened after those two wires headed off to the pole was somewhat of a mystery to me. Eventually I came to understand the massive infrastructure that allowed reliable telephone service into the home to be possible. Hats off to Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

When you think of a basic phone, it seems like such a simple thing. It can receive, it can transmit, and it can provide bidirectional signaling. Receiving and transmitting is obviously important, and it took a while for folks to figure out how to do both simultaneously without a bunch of extra wires and things. Signaling is equally important. The user of the device needs to know when someone is trying to contact them, and to be able to establish contact with someone else out on the network. A phone is actually a very clever thing, particularly when one thinks of what people did with what they had at the time, particularly in a world before the transistor.

But, what is a phone really? It is a service gateway. In its most simple form, it provides telephone service. That service then allows connectivity to other services, like the ability to call the plumber when your sink gets clogged, or order a pizza. Quite amazing! 

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How Security and Safety Regulatory Concerns Impact Public Transportation Industry

By Alexander Damisch

In my last blog, I discussed the changing mass transit landscape and the shift to commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies to meet the industry’s changing demands. In addition to price sensitivities and system complexities facing manufacturers, changes in security regulations, unknown safety and security threats, and an increasing amount of electronic systems with the potential for exposure to safety and security breaches, are causing regulatory bodies and insurance companies to demand that operators have the latest safety systems installed to protect against large scale accidents -- and this significantly impacts development.

Safety is paramount in any mass transportation system, from local trams to high-speed cross country trains. The standards governing safety systems have been evolving over time, and we're starting to learn from markets, such as aerospace, about the appropriate architectural concepts and model-based designs required to achieve effective certification standards. 

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The State of Modern Nomadic Life

By Alexander Damisch

Public transportation is undergoing tremendous transformation at the moment. The reasons for this revolution are varied. Mass transit has never been more important around the world as the urban areas of highly developed countries are unable to handle further unlimited growth of private transportation. Emerging countries with a 100-year backlog in public transport infrastructure development face the need to be prepared to move their fast growing population, as well as move competitive labor into urban working areas from remote locations.

Making transportation more affordable and accessible, while responding faster to consumer needs, drives a challenging but rapid need for modernization. The last 10 years have shown that terrorists, sadly, have been able to exploit vulnerabilities in public transportation. At the same time, the latest communication technology is now standardized to transport more people, in ashorter time and more reliably, which is just further increasing the vulnerability of the public infrastructure to cyber security threats.

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Fish Finders, Embedded Linux and Graphics

By Paul Anderson 

Here I am up at rustic cabin in Northern Wisconsin enjoying some time off the grid. I feel like Ralph Waldo Emerson getting in touch with nature, and exploring Transcendentalism, except for one minor detail: I have a wireless connection. Emerson was quoted as saying “Nature hates calculators,” and I’m not sure what he would think about the billions of connected devices scattered across the landscape. Not to worry, I’ll be back unplugged soon enough and enjoying some quality time in the “digital free zone.”

I tried my hand at some fishing this week on the little lake we are on. Even though I’m a gadget person in general, I am a very low tech fisherman. With the help of my brother in law, my kids and I just fished the old fashioned way, with a pole, hook, bobber, and worm. It didn’t take long to find the fish, or for the fish to find us. However, there are plenty of high tech anglers out there that use everything from advanced weather forecast maps, fish finders, and even underwater cameras. I find all that technology interferes with the peace of mind that I am looking for when doing things like fishing, but perhaps that is because I am fully immersed in technology as a career.

Modern high end fish finders, GPS units, and other electronics equipment used in the outdoors have become much more sophisticated. The users of deeply embedded devices have come to expect a graphical user interface, low power consumption, and reliability. A similar trend can be found across a spectrum of deeply embedded devices, including industrial control panels, medical equipment, military applications, and of course, consumer equipment.

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Wind River Named "Transformational"

By Ido Sarig

Voke, Inc. has just released its annual “Market Mover Array Report on Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)," and we’re very pleased to see that Wind River’s Device Lifecycle Management solutions were favorably reviewed, and ranked as  “Transformational” - the highest category, reserved for vendors that are changing the tone and direction of the market! 

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