Introduction

Crucial infrastructure clients are challenged to make industrial networks extra accessible with out considerably rising cybersecurity dangers. That is due partly to the frequent observe of utilizing Industrial IoT (IIoT) and cloud applied sciences to investigate massive volumes of commercial information to enhance operational efficiencies. To achieve success, this observe requires a steadiness between advancing digitization to stay aggressive and securing crucial infrastructure techniques.

Most of the Industrial Management Programs (ICS) and Operational Expertise (OT) utilized in crucial infrastructure have expertise with little or no built-in safety. Connecting these techniques to exterior, untrusted networks poses safety dangers since these techniques assist the secure operation of crucial infrastructure. So, how are you going to safely and securely join these techniques to the cloud to get the advantages from cloud choices with out including danger to the ICS/OT techniques?

AWS recommends following the ten safety golden guidelines for IIoT options. These guidelines advocate to deploy safety home equipment, similar to unidirectional gateways, to regulate information stream and set up safe connections to exterior, untrusted networks and cloud providers.

Unidirectional gateways permit OT/IIoT information to be despatched from the OT community to the IT community and Cloud in a single path whereas bodily blocking site visitors in the wrong way. Unidirectional gateways could be a safe various to firewalls. They meet a number of industrial safety requirements, similar to NERC CIP, ISA/IEC 62443, NEI 08-09, NRC 5.71, and TS50701. They’re additionally supported by the Business IoT Consortium’s Industrial Web Safety Framework, who supplies steerage on defending security networks and management networks with unidirectional gateway expertise. NIST SP 800-82 states that utilizing unidirectional gateways might present further protections related to system compromises at larger ranges or tiers inside the surroundings. For instance, a unidirectional gateway deployed between Layers 2 and three might shield Layer 0, 1, and a couple of units from a cybersecurity occasion that happens at Layers 3, 4, or 5. For extra data, consult with the Purdue Enterprise Reference Structure (PERA).

On this weblog, we focus on two choices to ship OT/IIoT information to AWS utilizing unidirectional gateways. You should utilize Waterfall Safety’s Unidirectional Cloud Gateway to ship OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT SiteWise or AWS IoT Core to assist IIoT, Business 4.0, and AI/ML use circumstances. For instance, to enhance operational efficiencies and cut back unplanned downtime in crucial infrastructure operations. This strategy allows clients in crucial infrastructure sectors and controlled industries to reap the benefits of AWS Cloud providers whereas limiting the dangers to their ICS/OT environments.

Resolution Overview

Unidirectional gateways are a mixture of {hardware} and software program. Unidirectional gateway {hardware} is bodily capable of ship information in just one path, whereas the gateway software program replicates servers and emulates units. For the reason that gateway is bodily capable of ship information in just one path, there isn’t a risk of IT-based or internet-based safety occasions pivoting into the OT networks. The gateway’s duplicate servers and emulated units simplify OT/IT integration.

A typical unidirectional gateway {hardware} implementation consists of a community equipment containing two separate circuit boards joined by a fiberoptic cable. The “TX,” or “transmit,” board accommodates a fiber-optic transmitter, and the “RX,” or “obtain,” board accommodates a fiber-optic receiver. Not like typical fiber-optic communication parts, that are transceivers, the TX equipment doesn’t comprise a receiver and the RX equipment doesn’t comprise a transmitter. As a result of there isn’t a laser within the receiver, there isn’t a bodily approach for the receiving circuit board to ship any data again to the transmitting board. The equipment can be utilized to transmit data out of the management system community into an exterior community, or on to the web, with out the chance of a cyber occasion or one other sign returning into the management system.

Determine 1 exhibits how a unidirectional gateway replicates historian information from an industrial community to an exterior community, similar to an enterprise IT community or Cloud. Unidirectional gateway software program working on the economic circuit board connects to the economic historian database and points queries to the database. Historic information retrieved from the economic database is distributed throughout the unidirectional gateway {hardware} to software program working on the board linked to the exterior community. That software program registers as a consumer of the duplicate historian database. It then points insert requests to that database asking the database to retailer all of the timestamped information obtained from the economic community. Customers and functions on the exterior community that want entry to the historic information can entry the duplicate historian. This strategy isolates and protects the economic techniques within the industrial community.

Determine 1: Historian information replication utilizing a Unidirectional gateway (courtesy Waterfall Safety Options)

Choice 1: Sending OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT SiteWise

Determine 2 exhibits how one can ship industrial information to AWS IoT SiteWise utilizing a unidirectional gateway. AWS IoT SiteWise is a managed service that simplifies accumulating, organizing, and analyzing industrial tools information at scale. The Waterfall gateway equipment reads OPC UA information from an OPC UA server and hosts a reproduction OPC UA server for the IT community. An AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateway working on AWS IoT Greengrass reads the OPC UA information from the duplicate OPC UA server and sends that information to AWS IoT SiteWise within the cloud. The info is saved in AWS IoT SiteWise and may be visualized in AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor. AWS IoT SiteWise Edge software program makes it straightforward to gather, manage, course of, and monitor tools information on-premises. AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor is a function of AWS IoT SiteWise that you need to use to create portals within the type of a managed net software. You’ll be able to then use these portals to view and share your industrial/operational information.

Determine 2 – Sending industrial tools information utilizing a unidirectional gateway to AWS IoT SiteWise

Resolution Overview

AWS

1. Setup AWS IoT Greengrass

AWS IoT Greengrass is an open-source edge runtime and cloud service for constructing, deploying, and managing gadget software program. With AWS IoT Greengrass put in, you possibly can deploy AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateways to gather industrial information utilizing industrial protocols similar to OPC UA.

2. Deploy AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateway software program

AWS IoT SiteWise gateways run on AWS IoT Greengrass V2 as an IoT Greengrass element that helps information assortment and processing on premises. On this step, you deploy the AWS IoT SiteWise Edge gateway software program for information assortment utilizing OPC UA and configure the OPC UA settings.

3. Mannequin the belongings in AWS IoT SiteWise

Mannequin the belongings to create digital representations of your industrial operation with AWS IoT SiteWise. An asset represents a tool, a bit of kit, or a course of that uploads a number of information streams to the AWS Cloud.

4. Configure AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor dashboard

Create a dashboard to watch key working parameters and efficiency metrics in your belongings utilizing AWS IoT SiteWise Monitor and take obligatory actions when wanted in near-real time.

Waterfall

5. Setup the OPC UA consumer on the Waterfall unidirectional gateway equipment

Use the unidirectional gateway’s web-based person interface on the economic community. Log in and configure an OPC UA information supply. Enter the host title/IP handle and login credentials. Additionally, embody directions about copying all information factors within the OPC UA server (the default), or choose the elements of the OPC UA namespace that may be copied to the IT community.

• Waterfall TX acts as a local OPC UA consumer that reads information from the OPC UA server on the shopper’s industrial system in actual time.
• Waterfall RX acts as a reproduction of the economic OPC UA server and allows OPC UA shoppers on the enterprise community to learn the replicated information.

For detailed directions, consult with the Waterfall Safety product documentation.

Choice 2: Sending OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT Core

Determine 3 exhibits how one can ship industrial information to AWS IoT Core by means of a unidirectional gateway and utilizing the MQTT protocol. Messages can then be routed to totally different AWS providers (similar to AWS IoT Occasions, AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Easy Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon Timestream) for processing utilizing the AWS IoT guidelines engine. The Waterfall Unidirectional Gateway is an MQTT dealer on the economic community. It receives MQTT messages from industrial techniques and sends that information by means of the gateway to the Waterfall consumer, which then sends the information to AWS IoT Core.

Determine 3 – Sending industrial tools information utilizing a unidirectional gateway to AWS IoT Core

Resolution Overview

AWS

1. Setup Amazon Timestream to retailer the information originating from the economic database.

On this state of affairs, we use Timestream which is a quick, scalable, and serverless time-series database. Nonetheless, you need to use different purpose-built AWS Cloud databases.

2. Create an AWS IoT Factor with certificates and guidelines to ship information to Timestream.

On this step, the Waterfall Unidirectional gateway is created as an IoT Factor in AWS IoT Core with an IoT certificates and IoT coverage. A rule is configured to ship information obtained by AWS IoT Core to Timestream. Timestream integrates with generally used providers for visualization and machine studying. For instance, you possibly can visualize information utilizing Amazon QuickSight or Amazon Managed Grafana, and use Amazon SageMaker for machine studying.

3. Create and setup the Amazon Managed Grafana dashboard to visualise information.

4. Configure the Amazon Managed Grafana dashboard and create the graphs.

5. Visualize your time collection OT/IIoT information and create alerts utilizing Amazon Managed Grafana.

Waterfall

6. Setup an MQTT connector by means of the Waterfall web-based person interface on the economic and the IT sides of the unidirectional gateway equipment.

For detailed directions, consult with Waterfall Safety product documentation.

Conclusion

On this publish, you realized the right way to stream OT/IIoT information to AWS IoT SiteWise and AWS IoT Core utilizing the Waterfall Unidirectional Cloud Gateway. This resolution allows regulated industries and important infrastructure sectors to reap the benefits of cloud providers in AWS (similar to IoT and AI/ML) whereas stopping distant occasions from penetrating again into protected industrial networks. Whereas the unidirectional gateway simplifies OT/IT integration and helps enhance the safety posture, it’s only one facet when designing safe OT/IIoT community architectures. AWS recommends a multi-layered strategy to safe the ICS/OT, IIoT, and cloud environments as described in the ten safety golden guidelines for IIoT options.

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