Honeywell (News - Alert) recently announced it has joined the Global Cybersecurity Alliance (GCA), created by the International Society of Automation (ISA), as a founding member. The company reportedly will collaborate with GCA participants to build awareness, provide education, share best practices, and accelerate the development and adoption of cybersecurity standards.
“Cybersecurity is the great equalizer for any company,” said Matthew Bohne, VP and Chief Product Security Officer, Honeywell Building Technologies. “All companies should thoughtfully incorporate cybersecurity into the products and services they sell. The entire industry and connected world at large needs to operate with the confidence that our digital infrastructure is robust and secure, whether it’s utilities or facilities and even specific products we use everyday. This is core to our collective future, and the GCA provides the platform and partnership to make it happen.”
According to the announcement, Honeywell’s involvement with the ISA GCA builds on decades of work, both with ISA and internally, to protect customers and technologies from on- and offline threats. This includes being a founding member of the ISA Security Compliance Institute, which oversees product certification for ISA/IEC (News - Alert) 62443, which is a series of standards adopted by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and endorsed by the United Nations for the cybersecurity lifecycle of industrial control devices and systems.
“The ISA/IEC 62443 standards outline what’s needed to secure automation systems,” said Mary Ramsey, executive director, ISA. “Now we need to move from ‘what’ to ‘how,’ providing the practical direction, tools and support to guide how the standards are applied. The involvement of industry leaders is vital to make this happen. Honeywell will help build the coalition and momentum needed to safeguard essential-yet-often-vulnerable technology.”