Wurldtech announced today that ABB’s AC800M industrial controller is now Level 1 Certified. I’ve blogged before on Achilles Level 1 Certification, but in brief it means a controller passed rigorous positive, negative and resource exhaustion test cases in layers 2 to 4 of the OSI model, e.g. Ethernet, IP, TCP, ICMP, ….

This certification is gaining momentum. Now there are seven certified controllers from five different companies with ABB joining Emerson, ICS Triplex, Triconex and Yokogawa with certified controllers. I’m told there are other controllers scheduled to attempt certification testing in September.

Even more encouraging is there are now RFP’s out with Achilles Level 1 certification as a requirement. It is not large yet in terms of the number of RFP’s, but when large asset owners with purchasing power levy concrete and provable security requirements like a certification it has an immediate effect on the vendors.

This was the idea behind the certification. Asset owners have enough security challenges without worrying about latent vulnerabilities and testing of protocol stacks. Digital Bond has believed for a few years now that Achilles was ideally positioned to create a testing and certification program that provided asset owners with information on this difficult security aspect and rewards those vendors with a more secure and reliable protocol stack.

Tomorrow I’ll post my podcast with Nate Kube on controller testing. It really is a fascinating field that borrows from classic IT black box testing but definitely has many techniques and facets unique to control systems.

Disclosure:  Digital Bond helped Wurldtech create the Achilles Certification program and continues to evangelize the certification as a paid partner - - - and we are a huge believer in the necessity for protocol stack testing.