I4sec

The fourth industrial revolution has the potential to improve manufacturing processes in regards to efficiency and cost. The Industry 4.0 is characterized by highly flexible production environments and improved individualization of the products and business processes. All that requires an interconnection and digitization of the whole production layer. With the use of sensors the machines, materials and end products can sense their own production state as well as environmental conditions. Additionally, the numerous distributed devices communicate with each other and thus optimize to production workflow in a novel way.

Due to long product- and machine lifecycles, many production areas of small to medium enterprises (SME) are not digitized yet. Therefore, retrofitting scenarios are being implemented with the help of distributed sensors to measure the different production parameters and states of the machines and materials. This action requires a secure connection of several sensor systems and machines within a company and beyond. The remote maintenance and especially the optimization of sensors within an ever-changing production environment is very costly due to the third-party sensor manufacturers. Therefore, this project aims to develop and improve mechanisms for secure remote maintenance of sensor systems and the data analysis for process optimization with its focus on SMEs.

The project I4sec aims to support SMEs by demonstrating and standardizing scalable IT-Security solutions for secure remote maintenance of machine sensors. To improve the production processes, I4sec also realizes an integration within the production environment of a project partner as exemplary SME.

For the development of a scalable IT security solution, I4sec makes use of the results and products which were developed within the national reference project for IT security within Industry 4.0 (IUNO), which has also been founded by the federal ministry of education and research (BMBF). For the real-world application within SMEs, further extensions and adaptations are required. In particular the following aspects are being researched on within I4sec:

• Organization security: The sole development of technical solutions for IT security is not sufficient. It rather requires a security-aware business culture and an implementation of fitting processes, in order to continuously improve the security measurements. This also involves the special demands and needs of SMEs in particular.
• IT-Security for SMEs: The digitization of products using retrofitting of sensors requires a secure interconnection of internal and external IT systems within a company. Thus, scalable and light-weight solutions are necessary for the implementation within a SME.
• Secure remote maintenance: The maintenance of complex machines and sensor systems is usually executed by external specialists of the manufacturer. In order to fix problems fast and cost-effective or to optimally configure the systems, a remote maintenance system with an authenticated access is required.
• Secure data acquisition: Sensor-based predictive maintenance has a high potential to lower maintenance costs and to detect upcoming errors at an early stage. Especially considering production facilities with different machines and process responsibilities, the data sovereignty is an important aspect. This requires a framework for intelligent, role-based data acquisition, which only allows authorized participants to access the requested data.
• Proof of Quality: The modern production involves company-wide networks. To guarantee the quality of the products, suppliers need to prove the compliance with the quality standards. Thus, new solutions for a tamper-proof data acquisition and transparent provision of Proof-of-Quality shall be developed.
• Software updates: The technical progress and the identification of threats requires a secure and automated mechanism to update the software of sensors or production devices. Therefore, mechanisms for integrity and authenticity verifications of software updates are required to meet the demands of automated production environments of SMEs.

Project partner: digital worx GmbH; KMPC Innovations GmbH; Buday GmbH

Project founding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Budget: 200.000€

Project duration: 10.2019 – 28.02.2022