Training and Certification
This is a archive for Training and Certification.
Monday, January 30, 2012 @ 04:01 PM gHale
A fluke mishap last year at Progress Energy’s Brunswick nuclear plant near Wilmington, NC, was the result of a the lack of worker qualification and that necessary training had lapsed for more than a decade, nuclear safety officials said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued its preliminary findings Wednesday, but it is continuing its investigation to determine the safety significance of the incident.
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The unusual mishap that shut down the Brunswick Unit 2 reactor last November may be the only such incident in U.S. nuclear history.
The Brunswick plant’s boiling water nuclear reactor vessel functions like a giant teapot, producing steam to power an electric generator. The steam builds up under pressure contained by a tightly sealed lid.
But last November, mildly radioactive water bubbled out of the chamber rather than boiling inside under pressure to form steam. At one point the water was flowing out at a rate of over 10 gallons a minute, about 100 times more volume than would flow out under normal circumstances.
NRC investigators concluded the lid was improperly attached after a refueling outage because maintenance workers did not have proper training in reactor vessel disassembly and reassembly. Qualification for this kind of work hadn’t been provided since 2000, the NRC said in its assessment.
Nine of the 12 workers who performed the reactor vessel assembly did not have the proper qualifications. Some received “just-in-time” (i.e., last-minute) training before the fall 2011 refueling outage.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 @ 11:12 AM gHale
Voltage increases of up to 25 percent in two barely separated nanowires should help designers of next generation phones, handheld computers, batteries and solar arrays.
“People have been working on nanowires for 20 years,” said Sandia National Laboratories Lead Researcher Mike Lilly. “At first, you study such wires individually or all together, but eventually you want a systematic way of studying the integration of nanowires into nanocircuitry. That’s what’s happening now. It’s important to know how nanowires interact with each other rather than with regular wires.”
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Though the gallium-arsenide nanowire structures used by Lilly’s team are fragile, nanowires in general have very practical characteristics. They may crack less than their bigger cousins, they’re cheaper to produce and they offer better electronic control.
For years, the best available test method required researchers to put a charged piece of material called a gate between two nanowires on a single shelf. The gate, flooded with electrons, acted as a barrier: It maintained the integrity of the wires on either side of it by repelling any electrons attempting to escape across it. But the smallest wire separation allowed by the gate was 80 nanometers. Nanowires in future devices will pack together much more closely, so a much smaller gap was necessary for testing.
The current test design is simple. What Lilly and co-workers at McGill University in Montreal envisioned was to put the nanowires one above the other, rather than side by side, by separating them with a few atomic layers of extremely pure, home-grown crystal. This allowed them to test nanowires separated vertically by only 15 nanometers — about the distance next-generation devices will require. Because each wire sits on its own independent platform, electrical inputs varied by the researchers can independently feed and control the wires.
While applications for technical devices interest Lilly, it’s the characteristics of nanowires as a problem in one-dimensional (1-D) basic science that fascinates him.
A 1-D wire is not your common, thick-waisted, 3-D household wire, which allows current to move horizontally, vertically, and forward; nor is it your smaller, flattened micron-sized 2-D wires in typical electronic devices that allow electrons to move forward and across but not up and down. In 1-D wires, the electrons can only move in one direction: One behind the other.
“In the long run, our test device will allow us to probe how 1-D conductors are different from 2-D and 3-D conductors,” Lilly said. “They are expected to be very different, but there are relatively few experimental techniques that have been used to study the 1-D ground state.”
One reason for the difference is the Coulomb force, responsible for the Coulomb “drag” effect, regardless of whether the force hastens or retards currents. Operating between wires, the force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance; that is, in ordinary microelectronics, the force is practically unnoticeable, but at nanodistances, the force is large enough that electrons in one wire can “feel” the individual electrons moving in another placed nearby.
The drag means the first wire needs more energy because the Coulomb force creates, in effect, increased resistance. “The amount is very small,” said Lilly, “and we can’t measure it. What we can measure is the voltage of the other wire.”
There are no straightforward answers as to why the Coulomb force creates negative or positive drag, but it does. The force got its name from 18th century scientist Charles August Coulomb.
What researchers do know is “enough electrons get knocked along that they provide positive source at one wire end, negative at the other,” Lilly said. “A voltage builds up in the opposite direction to keep electrons in place,” thus increasing drag.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 @ 05:10 PM gHale
In conjunction with Cyber Security Awareness month, the Security Incidents Organization will offer free introductory membership to The Repository of Industrial Security Incidents (RISI).
This membership includes access to select incident summaries via downloadable PowerPoint slides posted daily throughout the month of October.
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RISI is an industry-wide repository for collecting, investigating, analyzing, and sharing critical information regarding cyber security incidents that directly affect SCADA, manufacturing, and process control systems. With over 200 incidents, RISI is the largest known collection of industrial cyber security incidents.
To get a full, complete membership at a discounted price, users can click here.
RISI enables members to receive reliable incident information that allows them to learn from others’ experiences, understand the risks associated with industrial cyber-threats, and adapt their current security policies in step with changing industrial cyber-security dynamics.
Founded in 2009, the Security Incidents Organization’s mission is to collect, investigate, analyze and share critical information regarding industrial cyber security incidents on a nondiscriminatory basis. An Advisory Board comprised of leading industrial automation users, consultants and suppliers guides the Security Incidents Organization. For more information about the organization or RISI, log on to www.securityincidents.org.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 @ 03:10 PM gHale
Control system cyber security certification is now added to exida’s Safety Automation Equipment List, a directory of safety certified equipment.
The new 2010 IEC 61508 safety standard now includes cyber security threat analysis. Responding to the new aspect to the standard, safety product, services, and certifications provider, exida is now incorporating control system cyber security as a part of the functional safety assessment process.
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“Cyber security has become an important issue,” said exida Managing Director Dr. William Goble. “The controller’s ability to maintain control and safety, even during an attack is the key.”
That is why a certified controller gives the user greater potential to have more uptime and fewer false trips while also maintaining a safe environment.
Sellersville, PA-based exida maintains the list of process industry equipment as a service to those selecting equipment for safety instrumented systems that meet IEC 61511. Only equipment actively marketed and available for sale by the manufacturer will go on the list.
Click here for more information, or to view the full Safety Automation Equipment List.
Thursday, September 15, 2011 @ 05:09 PM gHale
Mechatrolink motion control network meets industry safety standards after receiving certification from an independent third party, TÜV Rheinland.
TÜV confirmed these specifications satisfied the requirements of IEC61508 safety integrity level SIL3.
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A safety system can come together using the Mechatrolink network by adding a safety master such as a safety PLC and safety slaves, such as safety I/O devices, to the existing system. There is no requirement for special cabling to connect Mechatrolink Safety compliant devices; just use standard Mechatrolink cables. You can connect up to 61 safety slave devices. The Mechatrolink Safety protocol and the Mechatrolink standard protocol can co-exist on the same network.
Mechatrolink is the most widely used motion control network in Asia. The certification of the Mechatrolink field network for safety makes it possible for MMA members to build motion control and machine control systems for use in applications that comply with safety standards. The MMA is a group of Mechatrolink product developers and users who promote the use of Mechatrolink, an industrial network optimized for motion control.
Mechatrolink connects devices such as servo motors, servo amps and I/O to each other and to motion controllers such as PLCs, PACs and motion controllers. Mechatrolink is available in RS-485 and Ethernet versions, operates at speeds up to 100 Mbps, and can support up to 62 simultaneous devices.
The MMA’s Safety Working Group developed the specifications for the safety communications protocol. The Safety Working Group consists of seven corporate members: Inter Factory Partners Co., Ltd.; Digital Electronics Corporation; Nikki Denso Co., Ltd.; HIMA Japan; Magnescale Co., Ltd.; Yaskawa Electric Corporation; and Yokogawa Electric Corporation.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011 @ 04:09 PM gHale
Just over a year ago, a power failure shut down water-treating equipment at the Mabton water treatment plant in the state of Washington.
The problem was a computer designed to detect a loss of power failed and as a result, it did not automatically switch the plant to a back up generator and alert the plant operator.
For two days this problem went undetected and 370,000 gallons of raw sewage flowed right into the Yakima River.
That was probably the largest municipal waste water accident in Eastern Washington in the past 20 years, said Joye Redfield-Wilder, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology.
That cyber incident is just one case in the Repository for Industrial Security Incidents (RISI) at the Security Incidents Organization that shows how one simple incident could cost a company lost revenue or damage the surrounding area or the environment.
While the financial impact or the environmental impact of that spill were not revealed, other cases in the report on “Cyber Security Incidents and Trends Affecting Water/Wastewater Industrial Control Systems” do show 50 percent of incidents that did report financial implications found the costs were over $10,000 and 14 incidents had costs over $100,000.
Most of these were intentional incidents caused by disgruntled employees. Numerous incidents resulted in sewage spills into surrounding bodies of water. While the cleanup costs for most of these are minor, the impact to the environment can be significant.
There are more details on the Mabton case and other incidents in the report. For discounted price on the “Cyber Security Incidents and Trends Affecting Water/Wastewater Industrial Control Systems” report, or to get a discounted price on joining the Security Incidents Organization, please click here.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 @ 02:09 PM gHale
It was 5 p.m. on a June Saturday a few years back when a major U.S. auto manufacturer suffered an attack by the Slammer worm.
A SQL patch was available for the previous six months but they had not yet applied it to their systems. The system is running fine, they probably thought, so why apply a patch? The worm was efficient and quick. It ultimately ended up slithering its way into 17 of the manufacturer’s plants, and it took eight hours to contain the worm.
In eight hours, that worm cost the auto maker $150 million.
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The Slammer worm hit years ago and did serious damage; Stuxnet hit just last year and brought down a nuclear facility. Those event will continue and one way to help protect your plant is to arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible.
That is also where the Repository of Industrial Security Incidents (RISI) from the Security Incidents Organization (www.securityincidents.org) comes into play. Through the organization, it is possible to obtain reports and learn from what has happened and apply thorough analysis.
In the case of the auto maker, limited infrastructure firewalls did nothing to prevent the spread. Ultimately, IT had to detach the unprotected telecom infrastructure which appeared to be the primary mode of spread between plants.
In the end, the manufacturer had to rebuild more than 1,000 computers and they had to conduct an audit of all plants for external unwatched/unprotected data connections. One plant alone had over 400 violations. They conducted security awareness training in all plants.
The Slammer worm has quite a reputation and is now in the trophy case of historic cyber events, but that incident just goes to show how quickly and how expensive any type of cyber event could be.
If you would like full membership to the Security Incidents Organization at a discounted price, then click here through ISSSource.com. As a member of the organization, you can access various valuable reports.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 @ 11:09 AM gHale
Control system security incidents occur all the time and the more knowledge the industry has of these incidents, the better off everyone will be. That is why the Repository of Industrial Security Incidents (RISI) is requesting submitting incidents so they add them to their database.
Reporting incident data provides valuable information, so when they are compiled and analyzed they can provide a view of trends that may be occurring. They can also show those trends and possible solutions on how to prevent them.
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Incidents reported to RISI are for the purpose of industrial security education. Sharing your information will help the automation community secure their processes which ultimately will protect their assets, employees, communities and the environment.
A new online incident report form is now available. You can complete the form online and submit it directly. Any qualified submission will earn one free month of access to the valuable RISI database.
For those concerned about protecting their identity, the new form requires no contact information in order to submit an incident. To further ensure confidentiality, we disable email and IP address collection.
If you would prefer a full membership to the Security Incidents Organization at a discounted price, then click here through ISSSource.com. As a part of the organization, you can get a discounted copy of various valuable reports.
Friday, August 19, 2011 @ 04:08 PM gHale
The U.S. wants to boost the cyber security workforce and hike the pool of skilled workers under a new education plan.
The goal of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) plan, released by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is to improve U.S. cyber security by focusing on education, the agency said.
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“The cyber security vulnerabilities in our government and critical infrastructure are a risk to national security, public safety, and economic prosperity,” the agency said in the draft plan. “Now is the time to begin a coordinated national initiative focused on cyber security awareness, education, training, and professional development. The United States must encourage cyber security competence across the nation and build an agile, highly skilled workforce capable of responding to a dynamic and rapidly developing array of threats.”
Cyber security experts and tech vendors have long called for an increased government focus on cyber security education and training. NICE grew out of the U.S. White House’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, released in 2008.
The plan focuses on public awareness as well as school- and college-based education. One of the plan’s goals is to raise awareness of cyber risks among U.S. residents.
“The American public has grown increasingly dependent on online activities to manage all aspects of daily life and remains largely unaware of the risks threatening their privacy, safety, and financial security,” the plan said. “This initiative needs to make more people aware that malicious actors exist and are ready to take advantage of people’s willingness to accept information from or provide personal information over the Internet.”
NIST also called for elementary and high schools to improve math and science education and to increase the number and quality of computer science courses. There needs to be new incentives to support graduate-level cyber security research, the agency said.