February 2018

NEWS NEWS www.drivesncontrols.com February 2018 3 Automation and controls products could be hit by CPU vulnerabilities MANY OF THE world’s biggest automation and controls companies – including ABB, Emerson, GE, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric and Siemens – have reported that some of their products are based on microprocessors (CPUs) that could be affected by the recently-revealed vulnerabilities known as Meltdown and Spectre. They are among a dozen suppliers who have notified the US Government’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-Cert) that some of their products use the affected processors. In addition, at least two suppliers – Rockwell Automation and Schneider Electric’s Wonderware – have revealed that a software patch issued by Micrososoft to tackle the Meltdown vulnerability can affect the performance of some of their software products. All of the 12 suppliers that have contacted ICS-Cert have issued notifications with recommendations for their customers. (Links to these notifications can be found in an ICS- Cert alert which can be viewed on its Web site at https://goo.gl/Bxuan2 ) The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities both take advantage of the ability to extract information from instructions that are executed on a CPU using the CPU cache as a “side-channel”. Microsoft has issued a patch to tackle the Meltdown vulnerability. But according to a report on the technology news site, The Register , this patch is itself causing stability issues for some industrial control systems. Rockwell Automation has reported that the patch has caused issues with its Studio 5000, FactoryTalk View SE and RSLinx Classic software products. And Wonderware says that the patch causes instability in its Historian software “and the inability to access DA/OI servers through the SMC”. One security expert, Bruce Scheier, has suggested that the Meltdown patch can degrade performance by almost a third. There are no patches for the Spectre vulnerability because the affected CPUs will need to be redesigned to remove the problem, and this could take years. www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/15/ meltdown_ics THE AMERICAN power transmission and water management corporation, Rexnord, is buying the German mechanical couplings manufacturer, Centa Power Transmission (Centa Antriebe Kirschey), for an undisclosed sum. The deal, which is expected to close by the end of February, will add about $100m of revenues to Rexnord’s existing $1.9bn. “Centa is a business that we have long thought would be an outstanding fit with Rexnord and we are very excited to come to an agreement to make that a reality,” says Todd Adams, Rexnord’s president and chief executive officer. “We expect to drive considerable revenue and cost synergies as the business is integrated into Rexnord and believe the complementary product portfolio opens up multiple growth opportunities for us.” Centa, headquartered in Haan, Germany, manufactures engineered flexible couplings and drive shafts for industrial, marine, rail and power generation applications. It has about 450 employees worldwide, and subsidiaries in ten countries, including the UK. Rexnord, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, consists of two strategic platforms – Process & Motion Control andWater Management – and has about 8,000 employees worldwide. It recently completed a $30m restructuring. www.rexnordcorp.com www.centa.info THE DUTCH industrial networking supplier, Procentec, which specialises in Profibus and Profinet technologies, has opened a UK office in Manchester. It says that the move will raise its profile and improve its service to UK customers. Jonathan Machin has been appointed sales engineer and will manage the UK office and promote Procentec in the UK. He will focus initially on sales activities, but Procentec hopes eventually to set up an official Profibus training centre in the UK. It will collaborate with PI UK to achieve this. Procentec will continue to work with its existing UK distributors – Hi-Port Controls, iTech, Parkelect and Verwer Training & Consultancy. The company’s portfolio includes Profibus and Profinet analysers, repeaters, gateways and converters, and products for monitoring, networking and control. Rexnord buys couplings-maker Centa, adding $100m of revenues The performance Rockwell’s Studio 5000 software can be affected by the patch issued to tackle toMeltdown vulnerability Dutch networking specialist sets up shop in the UK