Key Safety Challenges for the IIoT – Executive Summary
in safety mechanisms that mitigate potential
risks to a tolerable level. Harm in modern
connected systems can result not only from
unintentional system defects and random
failures, but also from intentional
manipulation of the system by a malicious
adversary.
K EY S AFETY C HALLENGES FOR THE
I NDUSTRIAL I NTERNET OF T HINGS -
E XECUTIVE S UMMARY OF IIC W HITE
P APER 3
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems
connect industrial control systems to form
larger end-to-end systems, connect them
with people and integrate them with
enterprise systems. The trustworthiness of
an IIoT ecosystem is defined as “the degree
of confidence one has that the system
performs as expected with characteristics
including safety, security, privacy, reliability
and resilience in the face of environmental
disruptions, human errors, system faults and
attacks.” 4 This paper focuses on safety
challenges related to the IIoT.
While different industrial sectors have long-
established approaches to safety, those
approaches and corresponding standards
are still evolving to address new and unique
safety challenges that IIoT brings. This white
paper articulates four key challenges unique
to the IIoT that affect safety characteristics
and recommendations to address these
challenges:
increased security risks due to an
increased attack surface,
convergence of IT and OT,
Safety is a critical aspect of trustworthiness
and a major concern in many IIoT systems.
Safety is defined as “the condition of the
system
operating
without
causing
unacceptable risk of physical injury or of
damage to the health of people, either
directly, or indirectly as a result of damage to
property or to the environment.” An
increasing number of devices and systems
combine
hardware,
software
and
connectivity to sense and control the
physical world in public spaces, factories,
offices and homes. Many of these systems
could cause harm to humans, animals or the
environment if they did not have designed-
pervasive autonomy and
inadequate regulatory framework
and evolving standards.
C HALLENGE 1: I ncreased S ecurity R isks
D ue to I ncreased A ttack S urface
Security risks related to an increased attack
surface expand the safety challenge in IIoT
systems. The increase in connectivity at
every level of the system leads to a much
larger attack surface that adversaries could
potentially exploit to remotely cause unsafe
system behavior. Moreover, IIoT systems are
becoming more dynamic than traditional
3
“Key Safety Challenges for the IIoT” Qinqing Zhang, Andrew King, Frederick Hirsch, Semen Kort. 27 November 2017. IIC
Whitepaper, IIC:WHT:IN6:V1.0:PB:20171127 https://www.iiconsortium.org/pdf/Key_Safety_Challenges_for_the_IIoT.pdf
4
The Industrial Internet of Things Volume G8: Vocabulary, IIC:PUB:G8:V2.1:PB:20180822, Version 2.1, August 2018, IIC.
https://www.iiconsortium.org/pdf/IIC_Vocab_Technical_Report_2.1.pdf
September 2018
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