Security in automation and control systems based on OPC techniques

This study examined the importance assigned by Human Resource personnel to the personality traits of Information Technology officers. The extent to which these traits were evident among Information Technology officers was determined and compared to their level of importance among Human Resource personnel. The well-known 16 Personality Factors model was used and data was collected by questionnaire from 84 Information Technology officers working at operational levels in organizations and 64 Human Resource personnel with experience in the recruitment of Information Technology officers. For most of the traits the findings showed reasonable agreement between the level of importance of the traits according to the Human Resource personnel and the extent to which traits were evident among the Information Technology officers. However, there were differences with respect to the four traits Friendliness, Introversion, Sensitivity, and Intellect and the practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Litton Guidance and Control Systems, together with MasPar Computer Corporation and support from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Information Technology Office (ITO), is addressing the problem of our military not having a fieldable, high performance, parallel processor. We are packaging MasPar's commercially successful, massively parallel processing system to minimize its size and maximize its survivability in severe environments such as tanks and aircraft. The resulting rugged, scalable, parallel system executes the same software and uses the same software tools as the existing commercial system.

The study titled "Information and Communications Technology Office Service and Activity System with Short Messaging Service" focuses on improving the current processes of the Information and Communications Technology Office through the development of a comprehensive system. The researcher identified problems within the existing processes and drew inspiration from prior arts and the Iterative Software Process Model to develop the Platform with SMS Notification. To evaluate the effectiveness of the system, the researcher used the ISO 25010:20r15 Software Quality Instrument and employed a Descriptive Research Design. The feedback from the respondents justified the study's objectives, leading to the conclusion that all objectives were successfully met. The software was found to exhibit "Very High" effectiveness in terms of various Software Quality Characteristics. The study recommends the full implementation of the developed system in the operational environment of the University. This implementation would bring about an upgrade from manual to automated and paperless recording processes, facilitated by Information Technology solutions. Furthermore, the study encourages future researchers to enhance the developed system by incorporating better features and expanding its scope to cover additional processes. The Study utilized the refreshed servers from the existing information systems that contributes to the maximization of the available resource to its potential use.

This book, originally published in 1987, evaluates the human and managerial implications of new office information technology, based on the actual experiences of organisations using the new technology. A variety of issues are examined including those centred on the role of the manger, producitivity, unemployment, physical and mental health. Major emphasis is placed on describing and discussing the implementation of new technology and ways of utilization which maximise benefits.

This article investigates caste dynamics within the information technology (IT) industry in Chennai. While there has been considerable commentary on the dominance of ‘upper’ castes within the industry, significantly less has been said about how ‘upper-casteness’ is retained and reinforced. In exploring everyday forms of upper-caste assertion, this article unpacks constructions of ‘corporate Brahminism’ on the IT office floor. Moreover, by analysing the experiences of employees from a broader range of caste backgrounds, it highlights spaces of resistance in the industry, underlining the relationality of caste in privileged sites of work within the modern economy.

A hospital is a group that medical professionals do in a well-structured manner. Electronic medical records are a transition from manual to computerized patient medical records. The function of electronic medical records in general is to improve the quality of services provided to patients. The method used in this study is a descriptive qualitative method and data collected through observation and interviews, the informants in this study are 3 people, namely the head of the medical record coordinator, registration officer and IT officer. Factors that hinder the readiness to implement electronic medical records include 3 aspects, namely: Human resources (HR), infrastructure and information technology (IT). The results obtained at the Karel Sadsuitubun Langgur Hospital are the lack of understanding and knowledge of officers related to electronic medical records, inadequate computers in the polyclinic room due to cost constraints, and the lack of integration with Satu Sehat. The readiness of the implementation of electronic medical records at Karel Sadsuitubun Langgur Hospital is still hampered by these 3 aspects so that there is a need for socialization and training to officers, the holding of computers in each polyclinic room so that services can run optimally and immediately cooperate with Satu Sehat.

Detecting malicious activities in Information Technology (IT) is a critical component of cybersecurity and is essential for identifying threats and attacks on systems, networks, and resources. However, security of industrial control systems, an area of increasing concern due to the convergence of IT with Operational Technology (OT), requires new approaches. This work proposes a novel containerized testbed architecture for industrial water systems, implemented using open-source technologies and structured according to the Purdue reference model, which is widely used in industrial control and automation systems. The architecture aims to provide a secure and efficient environment. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed architecture enables the simulation of computational devices behavior in water systems under different scenarios, allowing data to be collected for the detection of malicious activities, such as denial-of-service attacks and command injection. The results highlight the architecture's relevance to advancing research and development efforts aimed at enhancing the security of critical water infrastructure.

2 - An Overview of Instrumentation, Control, and Safety Systems

Home automation system has achieved an enormous reputation in recent years, as day-to-day life is getting simpler due to the speedy growth of modern technology. Various implemented systems have been offered in the sphere of Home Automation but have apparently failed to provide cost-effective solutions for the same. In this paper, we provide a low-cost smart Home Automation and Security System (HASS) using Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), and Bluetooth. These materialize the concept of internetworking of smart devices. A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) based on Wi-Fi is considered to monitor and control the smart environment, safety as well as electrical parameters of a smart interconnected home. The Android application-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) on a Smartphone is used to give facility to users for seamless control over the devices in a smart home. It may also consist of home security for example access control and alarm systems. When connected to the Internet, home devices are an important element of the Internet of Things (IoT). Home security includes both the security hardware placed on a property and individuals' personal security practices. Security devices consist of a door locking, alert alarm, lighting, motion detectors, and security camera system. Additionally, several special features include such as ensuring windows are closed, each door is locked, all alarms are activated, and extra keys are not secret outside.

At present, control system security efforts are primarily technical and reactive in nature. What has been overlooked is the need for proactive efforts, focused on the IT security research community from which new threats might emerge. Evaluating cutting edge IT security research and how it is evolving can provide defenders with valuable information regarding what new threats and tools they can anticipate in the future. Only known attack methodologies can be blocked, and there is a gap between what is known to the general security community and what is being done by cutting edge researchers --both those trying to protect systems and those trying to compromise them. The best security researchers communicate with others in their field; they know what cutting edge research is being done; what software can be penetrated via this research; and what new attack techniques and methodologies are being circulated in the black hat community. Standardization of control system applications, operating systems, and networking protocols is occurring at a rapid rate, following a path similar to the standardization of modern IT networks. Many attack methodologies used on IT systems can be ported over to the control system environment with little difficulty. It is extremely important to take advantage of the lag time between new research, its use on traditional IT networks, and the time it takes to port the research over for use on a control system network. Analyzing nascent trends in IT security and determining their applicability to control system networks provides significant information regarding defense mechanisms needed to secure critical infrastructure more effectively. This work provides the critical infrastructure community with a better understanding of how new attacks might be launched, what layers of defense will be needed to deter them, how the attacks could be detected, and how their impact could be limited.

This paper outlines the processes and best practices implemented to train Duke's Office of Information Technology (OIT) student technology trainers on technical topics and to help them become comfortable in the classroom (public speaking, handling questions, etc.).

Chapter 15 - DCS features, elements and HW details

It is clear that there is a need to promote the reuse in software development. In the case of real-time embedded system, component based software development can promote such reuse. In this paper we introduce the design of a framework based on components to develop embedded real-time control and automation systems. The basis platforms are the Linux/RT operating system and the embedded system TINI (tiny Internet interfaces) from Dallas semiconductor. The TINI is used as an embedded interface to an automation and control intelligent sensor network application and the Linux/RT is used to implement the real-time server front-end. The Java programming language and design patterns are used to develop the framework.

Building automation systems (BAS), or building control systems (BCS), typically consist of building energy management systems (BEMSs), physical security and access control, fire/life safety, and other systems (elevators, public announcements, and closed-circuit television). BEMSs control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting systems in buildings; more specifically, they control HVAC?s primary components such as air handling units (AHUs), chillers, and heating elements. BEMSs are essential components of modern buildings, tasked with seemingly contradicting requirements?minimizing energy consumption while maintaining occupants? comfort [1]. In the United States, about 40% of total energy consumption and 70% of electricity consumption are spent on buildings every year. These numbers are comparable to global statistics that about 30% of total energy consumption and 60% of electricity consumption are spent on buildings. Buildings are an integral part of global cyberphysical systems (smart cities) and evolve and interact with their surroundings (Figure 1) [2]. As buildings undergo years of exploitation, their thermal characteristics deteriorate, indoor spaces (especially in commercial buildings) get rearranged, and usage patterns change. In time, their inner (and outer) microclimates adjust to changes in surrounding buildings, overshadowing patterns, and city climates, not to mention building retrofitting [3], [4]. Thus, even in cases of ?ideally? designed BEMS/HVAC systems, because of ever-changing and uncertain indoor and outdoor environments, their performance frequently falls short of expectations. Unfortunately, the complexity of BEMSs, large amounts of constantly changing data, and evolving interrelations among sensor feeds make identifying these suboptimal behaviors difficult [1], [5]. Therefore, traditional data-mining algorithms and data-analysis tools are often inadequate.

Over the past few decades, the advent of the digital revolution has transformed the landscapes of all utilities. Sewage treatment is one of them. Information technology (IT) has increasingly been incorporated into all operational aspects of the sewage treatment industry, and particularly in the last decade, it has become an indispensable tool without which the industry cannot keep going, thanks to increasing automation of sewage treatment plants. Not only is IT used exclusively for automation. An area that is receiving increasing attention lately in terms of the value added of applying IT to support business decision making and operation is asset management. In order to effectively and efficiently manage assets in sewage treatment plants, the Drainage Services Department has transformed their life-cycle management system of sewage treatment asset from paper-based processes to an IT-based system. In the heart of this IT system is an application called “Sewage Treatment Operation and Maintenance Management Information System (STOMMIS)”, which involves the synchronization and direct integration of multiple IT systems, including process control and automation systems, maintenance management and stock control systems, financial information system, and laboratory information systems. Data collected by STOMMIS are stored in a data warehouse for analysis to support optimization of maintenance activities as well as the development of asset replacement plan based on asset conditions and risks. Over time, the use of information technology to support asset management will only evolve and increase. This will include the use of intelligent devices on assets that will be able to monitor and report back their capacity, use, and downtimes. This paper will give an overview on what the Drainage Services Department, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has done in terms of applying IT to asset management in sewage treatment plants and the way forward for continual improvement.