Rhebo Industrial Protector for Automotive Manufacturing

A pilot installation for monitoring the ICS of the German plant for one of the world’s most widely sold automobiles was integrated in a production cell with more than 300 devices.

The following challenges of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) needed to be addressed:

Complete transparency of all assets and communications

• Establish real-time, detailed analysis and visualization of the communication of a highly heterogeneous set of assets bya broad set of vendors active within the ICS;
• Gain detailed insight into ICS effectiveness and quality and provide actionable notifications of areas for improvement;
• Ensure continuous network condition monitoring across all levels of the automation pyramid.

Enhance cyber security and reduce overall risk

• Detect and report all anomalies in the ICS that could lead to plant failures or impair OEE;
• Avoid malfunctions due to maintenance and software updates in a passive, non-intrusive manner;
• Fully support the industrial IEC 62443 standard: "Industrial communication networks – network and system security".

Solution

 

Rhebo Industrial Protector seamlessly and non-intrusively monitors the communication within the ICS. The automatic anomaly detection system provides notification of events that may lead to disruptions or decreased overall system performance. Such anomaly notifications include both security incidents and technical malfunctions that can occur in the day-to-day operation of automated IIoT systems. Ultimately, Rhebo Industrial Protector ensures the reduction of downtime risks, increases the overall equipment efficiency (OEE) and thereby assures productivity. Rhebo Industrial Protector was installed at the automobile manufacturer as a pilot within a production cell with about 300 networked assets including various devices and logical hosts. The solution was centrally deployed via mirror ports and met the core requirement of non-intrusive monitoring for avoiding malfunctions due to false-positive alerts and software updates. The installation and commissioning did not interrupt the production at any time and the first results including actionable notifications were already available within a few minutes.

Outcomes

The automobile manufacturer achieved complete transparency within the monitored ICS domain through the use of Rhebo Industrial Protector. The manufacturer gained a clear and detailed identification of any misconfigurations and potential security threats within the ICS through anomaly notifications prioritized by risk scores. The pilot project laid the foundation for the use of automatic anomaly detection ensuring a disruption-free and continuity-assured automated production.