As part of his study 'To Kill a Centrifuge', Langner documented his findings on the full extent of the Stuxnet attack in early 2014 after three years of meticulous research.

© Langner

On July 6, Ralph Langner, an internationally recognized expert in cybersecurity, will open the actual "Forum Safety & Security" (formerly "Forum Functional Safety") with an accompanying trade exhibition. Langner became known worldwide for his analysis of the Stuxnet attack. In his keynote speech, he will discuss the reasons why industrial cybersecurity has not yet achieved the expected breakthrough. He will compare developments in the USA with those in Germany and Europe, analyze trends and forecast opportunities and problems with regard to Industry 4.0. He will discuss the challenges of growing digital complexity, particularly with regard to safety, and identify the most important sticking points that need to be addressed by industrial cybersecurity.

Following this, two parallel sessions will discuss current topics relating to industrial security and functional safety from the perspective of different markets and target groups: on the one hand from the perspective of industry and mechanical and plant engineering, and on the other from the perspective of the automotive sector. Two further sessions will be dedicated to the methods and tools that can be used to ensure safety and security during system development and will present hardware and software approaches for safe systems in detail.

The full program and further information, including the participation fee, can be found on the forum's homepage.

The 'Industry' lecture track

The Industry session will start on the first day of the congress with the topic of security: After the participants learn first-hand - i.e. from the perspective of a large mechanical engineering company - how the problem of data security can be dealt with in everyday operations, representatives of the Federal Office for Information Security and the VDMA will answer questions such as:

• What IT attacks will manufacturers, integrators and operators have to be prepared for in the future?
• What is the current threat situation?
• Do we need a CE directive for security?

In the afternoon, the focus will be on functional safety - i.e. topics such as risk assessment and reduction for machine tools, the influence of operating modes on safety or the question of how to proceed with safety applications that include pneumatics as well as electrical circuits.

The second day of the congress will again start with the topic of security and will use two current projects to shed light on how the process industry on the one hand, and medium-sized mechanical and plant engineering companies on the other, are arming themselves to keep Stuxnet & Co. out. The presentations on safety will include the question of how "dynamic" safety can be realized in the future.

The background to this is that the factory of the future will consist of configurable systems with actuators, sensors, machine modules and autonomous machines. Today, however, there is a lack of requirements and standards for safety functions that are changed when individual machine modules are connected or removed.

An overview of all presentations in the Industry session can be found here.

The lecture track 'Methods and tools'

As part of the Safety & Security Forum, a separate track will present methods and tools that developers can use to ensure the functional safety and security of their systems. On the first day of the congress (July 6), the experts will first clarify the actual requirements and terminology and then examine the suitability of approaches such as traceability, software unit testing, anomaly detection or agile methods for development in accordance with applicable safety standards.

On the second day of the congress (July 7), the focus will be on test and verification methods before, after the lunch break, there will be an in-depth look at how safety and security requirements influence each other and how developers can meet both aspects simultaneously during the course of a project.