Schneider gains Achilles status

A second major industry supplier, Schneider Electric, earned accreditation from Wurldtech Security Technologies to perform Achilles Communication Certification (ACC) testing on devices within Schneider’s labs in North Andover, Mass.

Greg Hale, ISSSource

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A second major industry supplier, Schneider Electric, earned accreditation from Wurldtech Security Technologies to perform Achilles Communication Certification (ACC) testing on devices within Schneider’s labs in North Andover, Mass.

What this means is Schneider can perform testing on its products at each stage in the development process to make sure they are secure before they go to market.

In May, Siemens ProductCERT also gained accreditation from Wurldtech to perform ACC testing.

Achilles Communication Certification provides a security benchmark for embedded device used in critical industrial infrastructure. The testing assesses the network robustness of industrial devices and certifies they meet a formal and comprehensive set of requirements and conformance.

“Wurldtech’s Achilles Certification is a relied-upon standard in the industry that aligns with our focus on security,” said David Doggett, industry cyber security program director within Schneider Electric’s Industry Business division. “Having the ability to certify our products directly in our own labs helps us provide our customers with further validated products that are cyber security threat resistant, ensuring uptime that leads to safe, normal operation of critical systems.”

“Our goal is to help industrial stakeholders like Schneider and Siemens among others, discover, analyze and mitigate evolving cyber security vulnerabilities in development,” said Wurldtech President and Chief Executive, Neil McDonnell. “Providing the Achilles Test Platform and certifying their R+D labs allows them to strengthen and test their embedded control devices before they are released.”

Schneider’s labs now have the technology to test its own products and then submit the testing data to Wurldtech. Wurldtech in turn reviews the results and once complete, awards the device with the ACC. This process shortens the development cycle and accelerates the internal learning curve, assuring that next-generation products are even more robust.

“The time and cost savings are a tremendous benefit to these stakeholders,” McDonnell said. “The ability for manufacturers to test equipment in development against independent third party’s test cases has proven to shorten development cycles and enables them to launch more secure products. Encouraging all manufacturers to do this helps mitigate the threat of cyber attacks and enhances their brand equity, reputation and customer relationships.”

“By incorporating the tests certified by Wurldtech, we are progressing with increased security of our soon to be Achilles certified products,” said Thomas Brandstetter, program manager ProductCERT at Siemens back in May when Siemens earned its certification.

“The ability to test directly within our lab environment allows us to deliver more secure products faster to the market and assures Siemens customers that our offerings are at compliance levels with common industry benchmarking methods that will assist them in avoiding downtime due to common security issues,” he said.