LIKE MOST AUTOMATION SPECIALISTS WHO PEER INTO THEIR PRODUCTION CONTROL NETWORKS, MARC AYALA WAS SHOCKED BY JUST HOW MUCH TRAFFIC WAS ON HIS. A SENIOR CONTROLS SPECIALIST AT AKZO NOBEL INDUSTRIAL SPECIALTIES INC., CHICAGO, HE NOTICED THIS ACTIVITY DURING A MIGRATION TO A NEW DATA HISTORIAN AT ONE OF THE COMPANY'S SURFACTANT PLANTS IN 2006. "ANY COMPUTER CONNECTED TO THE NETWORK AUTOMATICALLY DOES A BROAD SEARCH AND HITS EVERYBODY ON THE LINE," HE EXPLAINS. The number of hits was quite large because of the sheer size and complexity of the network need by the global manufacturer of coatings and specialty chemicals. Requests for information updates were coming from all over the world. What concerned Ayala was the fact that access to the historian was unsecured. To protect the integrity of critical control, safety, and regulatory data and processes, he joined the growing ranks of manufacturers installing the latest technology and adopting tighter policies for securing production networks. Working with the corporate information technology (IT) department, Ayala separated process control and information from the rest of the enterprise. When IT realized that the historian existed for reporting operational and environmental data, the department felt that it would be best for production experts in the field to take responsibility for it. Its recommendation was to establish a kind of firewall containing a gate where the enterprise network could knock and ask for updates.
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