The original title was “Updates on the ISA/IEC 62443 family of standards”. But that is about the title that the vast majority of readers will click away at lightning speed. But then, for “clickbait purposes”, we somehow wove in Admiral Nelson (see below for why).
Clicking away would be a big mistake for the reader (let’s call him a professional) whose task and responsibility is the design, manufacture, installation and operation of industrial monitoring systems – in our case mainly ICS/SCADAs for power systems. This is particularly the case since November 2021, when the ISA (International Society of Automation) and ISAGCA (ISA Global Cybersecurity Alliance) announced that the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) has recognised the “horizontal” capability of the Industrial Cybersecurity Standards Series. With this
the set of standards governing the electricity industry in the field of cybersecurity has been officially extended with the 62443 family of standards.
This means that we here at SeConSys have seen the future well when we identified the 62443 family of standards as the defining and detailed regulatory framework that could be authoritative for cybersecurity in the electricity system in early 2021. A possibility only hinted at 1 year ago is now a certainty.
As Admiral Nelson said, “A captain cannot make a great mistake who puts his own ship alongside the enemy’s.” Well, in our case.
any stakeholder involved in the cyber security of the electricity system cannot make a big mistake if they systematically start to process and translate the elements of the family of standards into their own narrow area of expertise.
From “simple” suppliers to accreditation authorities.
Many will have their work cut out. To paraphrase the saying: better early than late…
It is likely that the family of standards and its details will sooner or later be the subject of professional forums, even training courses.
To get an initial, comprehensive picture, the article of 26 December on industrialcyber.co may be particularly useful.
Let’s do it Nelson’s way!
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We welcome your comments, whether they agree or disagree with the above. For example, a new post could be written in response to these, which could even lead to a substantive exchange of views.