ISA makes standards, reports available

Paul V. Arnold, Noria Corporation

To facilitate the more rapid and effective development of critical consensus industry standards, ISA has made its published reports and draft standards on manufacturing and control systems security available free of charge until the end of 2005.  ISA is taking this unique step to encourage understanding and application of the approved guidance in its two ANSI approved technical reports, and to obtain even broader input to the next generation of standards that are well underway in development.

"While today's more interoperable and standardized automation and communication systems bring significant business efficiencies, they also bring greater risk of unauthorized access with attendant disruption to business and safety," said Bob Webb, Managing Director for ISA-SP99 Standards Committee on Manufacturing and Control Systems Security.  "ISA has recognized the need to address this issue, developed consensus guidelines, and presented information on the subject at numerous industry venues over the last three years. ISA is collaborating with many other organizations working on security matters, including the US National Laboratories, NIST's Process Control Security Requirements Forum, (PCSRF), the Chemical Industry Data eXchange (CIDX), DHS's Process Control Security Forum (PCSF), the American Gas Association (AGA), the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), and others. While many automation professionals are aware of security issues, relatively few manufacturers or users, and their architects, engineers and systems integrators, have adopted secure automation practices."

ISA is striving to enhance awareness of security practices that can be employed now and to assure that broad-based input is obtained for the standards that are in development.  By making the approved documents available together with the most current drafts of standards under development by the ISA SP99 committee, ISA intends to significantly expand the network of automation professionals, IT professionals, and business executives that will contribute to the application and refinement of best practices.

The two published guidance documents and the two draft standards can be accessed at www.isa.org/securitystandards.  Comments, suggestions, questions, and offers to help can be submitted to ISA at ISASP99@isa.org.

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