ACE to Kickoff ISA Denver’s Cybersecurity for Industrial Automation and Control Systems Series

Mark your calendars for Thursday, August 22 at 6:00 PM MDT to join us either in person or virtually for the first technical event in the Cybersecurity for Industrial Automation and Control Systems Series sponsored by the International Society of Automation’s Denver section.

As OT cybersecurity has become a bigger concern, ACE and other ISA Denver members recognized the need to ensure automation engineers are properly prepared. With this three-part series focused on industrial cybersecurity, ISA Denver aims to provide automation engineers with a better understanding of the OT cybersecurity standards and best practices available to help them protect their plant floor assets.

To kick-off the series, ACE OT and Cybersecurity Team Lead Timothy Mullen will lead Event 1 – Identify & Protect. During his presentation, he will provide an easy-to-understand introduction to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), which is a comprehensive set of guidelines and best practices to help organizations manage and reduce cybersecurity risks. He will also discuss how this framework ties into other key cybersecurity standards such as the ISA/IEC 62443 series of standards.

The presentation will then dive into more details on how to implement the first two key functions of the NIST cybersecurity framework – identify and protect. This discussion will include the following key information:

• Leveraging the tools automation engineers are already using to support OT assets for the identify function
• Understanding the legitimate gaps in what these tools provide compared to tools used in IT environments, which contributes to miscommunication between IT and OT around the state of identification in OT
• Driving the protect function with the inputs provided by the identify function

This cybersecurity series will continue into September and October where presentations will cover other aspects of the NIST CSF, with event two focusing on detect and govern and event three highlighting respond and recover. Additionally, since ACE has employees that are registered in the ISA Connect Technical Library, we are available to give this cybersecurity presentation, and talks on other automation topics, at any local ISA chapter.

ISA Denver and ACE Bring New Opportunities for Automation Engineers in the Rocky Mountain Region

When we were expanding our presence in the Rocky Mountain region, opening our Denver office in late 2022, we knew that the ISA Denver chapter had recently disbanded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since ISA’s mission is to empower the global automation community through standards and knowledge sharing, and because we are involved in multiple ISA chapters on the east coast, we knew the value an ISA chapter could bring to the region. Therefore, we felt it was vital to build-up the Denver chapter.

Working with other like-minded organizations in the area, we were able to revive the ISA Denver chapter in 2022, which serves multiple states in the Rocky Mountain region. For the past two years, we’ve not only been involved in coordinating and hosting community events, ranging from technical presentations to networking opportunities to service dates, our employees have also held board positions and been instrumental in driving the organization’s growth.

If you are located in the Rocky Mountain or Midwest regions, we not only encourage you to learn more about ISA Denver, but we want you to know that our team of highly skilled engineering and project management resources in Denver is growing and they are here to help you throughout the western US. Our local team’s in-depth expertise includes hardware design and integration, plant floor historian development, MES and modernization, cybersecurity project management, site and institutional utility solutions, and pharmaceutical system validation. 

Register for Cybersecurity Series Event 1: Identify & Protect today.

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