The announcement of the first Achilles Level 1 Certified Controllers is out. They are:

• CENTUM CS 3000 Field Control Unit - Yokogawa
• CENTUM CS 3000 Vnet Router - Yokogawa
• DeltaV Controller – Emerson
• ProSafe-RS Vnet/IP Safety Control Unit - Yokogawa
• Tricon Safety Controller - Triconex (Invensys)
• Trusted Safety Controller - ICS Triplex

It is great to have four vendors with certified products out of the gate, and I’m told there are more products from more vendors scheduled for certification testing. Future certifications will be announced as each device passes.

Remember that Level 1 Controller certification covers the protocols in Layers 2 - 4 of the OSI stack (Ethernet, ARP, ICP, ICMP, TCP, UDP) and optionally coverage of the control protocols. Detail on each of the test cases is now available online. In addition, each vendor received a much more detailed certification report that they can share with customers and prospects.

Links to the test results for each Achilles certified controller are available from this page. The test results page details the specific model and firmware version that was tested as well if the device is certified to meet any control protocols test cases.

Three exclamation marks in the blog title, so obviously I think this is a big deal and will be viewed as a key event in SCADA security a few years down the road. Vendors with secure and reliable protocol stacks should and will be rewarded by potential customers and those lacking will be forced to get on the ball. Equally important, determining if a protocol stack is secure and reliable is one security burden that is now being lifted from the asset owners. Hopefully more can be lifted so asset owners can focus on secure implementation at deployment and over time rather than live with widespread latent and easily exploited vulnerabilities in the equipment and applications they purchase.

Congratulations to the Achilles team at Wurldtech that brought the product and certification to fruition as well as to Eric Byres and early asset owner and vendor supporters of Achilles for their vision while it was a research project at BCIT.

Read our previous four-part blog series on Achilles Controller Certification.

Full Disclosure: Wurldtech is a Digital Bond client. We played a small role at the end of the day helping to structure and evangelize the Achilles Certification Program.