News & Knowledge

We’re your source for automation news. Keep up with the latest industry updates and E Tech employee spotlights, as well as tips and guidance from our manufacturing experts.

| August 29, 2023

Proactively Protecting Against Cyber Threats

Secure Your Company with a Cybersecure Control System Cybersecurity continues to gain more and more momentum in manufacturing, and for good reason. Some of these facilities can be responsible for millions, sometimes billions of dollars in business, quickly gaining attention and unfortunately becoming a target for a cyberattack if not properly secured. At a time when manufacturing facilities tend to be one of the most impacted by the decline in available workforce, the need for more flexibility in production capabilities takes precedence over most other initiatives. The rush to connect available assets for consolidated control and monitoring, and integrating their data collection and analysis will sometimes push decision makers to leap before they look. Not always considering any of the following, or lack thereof, may become an active threat without proper planning: Increasing IT/OT Convergence: Industry 4.0 & improving plant efficiency is a major driver for this convergence trend. Organizations see improved efficiency as a worthwhile end goal, but it does come with an expanding OT attack surface. High-Profile Incidents: Noteworthy OT/ICS cyberattacks over the last several years have proved how easily these high-profile OT systems can be broken into causing real concern. Some examples are the Stuxnet worm, the Ukraine power grid attack, and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. These examples show that OT/ICS incidents affect more than the targeted organizations. Nation-State Threats: Nation-state actors have shown interest in targeting critical infrastructure and industrial sectors as part of cyber espionage or cyber warfare efforts. Ransomware and Monetization: Ransomware attacks have evolved to target critical infrastructure and manufacturing facilities. These attacks have led to large downtime windows for the target organizations. Regulatory and Compliance Frameworks: Governments and regulatory bodies are recognizing the need to establish cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure sectors. Compliance requirements and guidelines are being developed to ensure the security of OT and ICS systems. Supply … Continued

| August 18, 2023

How to Ensure Useful Data Extraction from a PI Historian System

Data is an ever-present and growing benchmark in all industries. However, sometimes it may feel like it’s cloaked in mystery. There’s often a question of, why is collecting process data important? You then start to go down the rabbit hole trying to answer…..How do you get data out of your equipment? How do you decide what to collect? After assessing the previous questions, how do you test, and if necessary, validate that all of that data is being collected as expected? Understanding a holistic approach to data collection and validation from an AVEVA PI Historian System can help provide a high-level, big picture understanding to the importance of process data. With more than 10 years’ experience as a group engineering manager, Matt Martin has a depth of experience with integrating AVEVA PI Systems within sites of various sizes – here’s what I’ve learned: Why is the Importance of Data Increasing? The “why” question is the easiest one to answer. Everyone can agree that in the era of modern manufacturing, extracting data from your manufacturing processes is critical to a business’s success and ability to grow. This includes every level of production and management: Provides the operator at the plant floor level the ability to adjust and better control the manufacturing process on the fly Allows engineers better insight into trends and behaviors of the overall process to improve designs from both a throughput and efficiency standpoint Produces KPIs (key performance indicators) for managers and executives to assist in their decision making Having large representative data sets is becoming even more important with the advent of AI and more specifically machine learning. Allowing these technologies access to your systems data helps identify patterns, overall system behavior, and correlations that were previously near impossible for the human eye to uncover. Now, How … Continued

| August 17, 2023

Kate Van Kirk Promoted to Director of Business Process

Congratulations to Kate Van Kirk. Kate was recently promoted to Director of Business Process. Kate has been with E Tech Group since 2017. In 2020, she moved from Life Sciences to Corporate and played a significant role in several company initiatives including the migration to Zoho-Intacct booking synchronization, the Project Forecast Tool, and the implementation of the Resource Management Tool. “Kate will continue to play a major part in working collaboratively with stakeholders across the Company to bring additional tools to E Tech Group, improve existing tools, streamline workflow processes, and implement best practices,” said Vice President of Operations Gary Powell. Congratulations to Kate on a well-deserved promotion and thank you for the dedication to E Tech Group and our operations team!

| August 14, 2023

Cyberattacks: What’s in Your Wallet?

The original version of this article was pulled from Food Engineering featuring Kevin Romer, Principal Engineering and Matt Smith, network architect IT/ICS for E Tech Group. Click here to read the original article. Cybercriminals Custom-Tailor Their Ransom Demands To Your Budget. According to the FBI, the three most common IT/OT (operational technology) infection vectors are email phishing campaigns (aka BEC or business email compromise), remote desktop protocol (RDP) and software vulnerabilities. While some hackers may intentionally want to bring down your production systems using the second and third vectors, “we’re only in it for the money” is a far better motive for breaking into your IT/OT systems—and what better way to do it than through the phishing emails scattered among the zillions of emails you get every day. Accidentally clicking on one email link can quickly connect you with ransomware—which can not only shut down your business system, but also your production systems, if they’re not protected. The Role Subpar Control Systems Play in Cyber Attacks “Once inside an organization, ransomware groups and affiliates will often take advantage of the misconfigurations within an organization’s Active Directory security posture,” says Marty Edwards, Tenable deputy CTO of OT/IoT. “Gaining domain privileges provides attackers with the necessary capabilities to distribute their ransomware payloads across the entire network.” According to the IBM “X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2022,” ransomware was the number one attack type in 2021, accounting for 21% of all attacks. According to a 2022 SANS Institute survey, 40.8% of OT/industrial control systems (ICS) compromises came down from business IT systems. To safeguard production systems, manufacturers need to isolate OT from IT systems—or at the very least be able to have a quick disconnect when IT systems are infected. Secure Automated Systems Require IT/OT Separation In this article, we look at IT attacks and … Continued