Updated: Friday News and Notes
- The Microsoft Manufacturing User Group [MSMUG] will hold its annual summit in conjunction with ISA’s annual event in Houston on October 8th rather than out in Redmond. Whether this is due to limited travel budgets or to take advantage of the built in crowd at ISA it should boost attendance at MSMUG.
- UPDATE: This just in . . . the DHS ICSJWG [Industrial Control System Joint Working Group] will hold their First Annual Conference in conjunction with the ISA Expo, Oct 5 – 7 in Houston. We seem to be nearing a harmonic convergence. There is a short fuse for the Call for Papers that ends on July 6th. Now here are some of my questions: what is the ICSJWG trying to accomplish with this conference? What has ICSJWG done that past 3 months and what specific efforts are underway? What presentations at the Conference would help ICSJWG meet its mission? I attended the planning/kick off in Denver and left with many questions, and I have heard nothing since. I’m sure this will draw a good crowd, but is holding an annual event that is similar to the old PCSF annual meeting the goal? That would be great, especially if it was community driven like the most successful PCSF meetings. But it was my impression that this was specifically not the goal, although admittedly the goal beyond industry <> government information sharing was unclear.
- Wurldtech announced the HIMA HIMax safety system has achieved Achilles Certification. This is the 13th control system to get Achilles certified [FD: Wurldtech is a past Digital Bond client]
Author: Dale Peterson
Posted: June 19th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1
Comments
Comment from Mike Toecker
Time: June 22, 2009, 1:38 pm
Also in the News for last week was the addition of Nuclear Plants to the NERC CIP compliance list.
Developments from the Nuclear Town Hall in Toronto:
1. FERC is adamant that nuclear plants comply with the CIP standards. While NRC regulates cyber security from a reactor safety standpoint, there is no regulation for reliability, which is what NERC CIP is designed to regulate.
2. NRC and NERC/FERC will be working together to determine which systems fall into CIP-space, and which one’s fall into NRC-space.
3. The timeline for compliance will be vastly different for Nuclear Plants, so no tables and “Significantly Compliant” status for Nukes.
4. Once again, all deadlines are set through the direction in the FERC Order (706-B).
All in all, I was impressed with the cohesive message delivered by NERC and NRC personnel. Emphasis was placed on a process of collaboration between NERC and NRC, and the intent to limit (and hopefully eliminate) instances of dual compliance.
Michael Toecker
Burns and McDonnell Engineering
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