Skip to main content

Do no harm


Having endured another restless night, Oscar reaches for the alarm.   His mind wanders as he recalls the nightmare which seems to be top of mind, even as the sun peaks through the windows.   Their service company,  WeHelpU was in court defending their position regarding the data breach at the "TrustMe nuclear plant".   They,  like many other service providers, WeHelpU jumped on the IoT bandwagon a couple of years ago.  It didn't take long for Oscar to become overwhelmed, current situation aside, what about the thousands of our other customers?



A couple of years ago, in 2018, we established  rules of engagement to prevent us from being in this situation, where did we fail?



  • Air Gap | at first we were very disciplined to only install non-intrusive monitoring.  As our skills and knowledge broadened we started making exceptions.   Hey, we can save some capital if we just connect to the existing control system?
  • Cellular | while very tempting we stood our ground and never connected to the clients network,  sensors to the  gateway and gateway to the cloud.
  • Anonymized | this was the trickiest of all.  Fact is we have lots of sensors and actuators which all tie to assets,  which belong to sites,  sites which belong to clients.   Whether structured data sets or metadata tags, they are all vulnerable.   The short term recall of data is powerful for scheduled and unscheduled activity and needs to relate to the customer.   Long term data is helpful for models and AI, this data should be anonymous.



Our discipline, or lack thereof, will impact our organizations and our clients.   We simply don't know what we don't know, be curious but cautious.



-----

Next post:  who's data is it?

Thoughts?  feel free to leave replies or direct message

See all of the "last mile worker" posts here:  http://lastmileworker.com

-----


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

entusiastic about preventative maintenance

Why do I really care if my field technicians are enthusiastic or not? When you look at a person's work output, as directly related to workforce sciences, you come up with three primary ingredients required to achieve your desired results.   These ingredients are; attitudes, attributes, and capabilities and when mixed properly with enabling tools can yield unbelievable outputs. So what does any of this have to do with routine maintenance? If your maintenance routines actually become way too routine then pretty soon performance will be replaced with complacency. In order to keep any piece of equipment running as trouble-free as possible the maintenance performed, and the thoroughness of the inspection and tasks at hand, have a direct impact on the asset's life expectancy.   There are some strategies that help service organizations keep the enthusiasm at all-time highs. Switch techs from time to time :   One of the best ways to ensure maintenance is being performed...
Post a Comment
Read more

why transform?

Why do I want to change, who said anything was wrong with my stack of papers and sea of Excel files?   We solve problems, that is a key characteristic of any successful service organization, if it isn't broke why fix it?   Often, when discussing a transformation from paper or cobbled together systems to a cohesive digital approach, folks struggle with the gap between what they currently do and how digital tools can help.   You really need to look at where the pain points are in your organization and how these compare to your business objectives.   Consider writing down these points on the whiteboard in no particular order, spend a few days shuffling and consolidating into a prioritized list.   Once you have the "why" and the "what" identified, the old remaining step is "how".   Some of the most popular observations over the years have been; Slipping through the cracks :   you know, not the major muscle movements, instead those little i...
Post a Comment
Read more

jumper wire, really?

Okay already, do I have to say it?   Are you really that insecure?   Avid Andy's mind began to flashback; jumping the safeties because you did not understand how to read a schematic, manually forcing the new-fangled VFD at 60hz since the "last system" never changed speed, blaming that new magnetic compressor for the lack of cooling in the building (due to its size) ... by the way where do I check the oil?   Each one of these, and there are countless other examples, have the same root issue:   humans.   You can see the frustration flood over Andy's face, very similar to that of Charlie Brown as he endured tireless teasing from Snoopy.   It seems convenient, especially as time causes our opinions to become increasingly cynical, to respond with "they just don't give a crap".   Reluctant Ruth, the epitome of cynicism,   shouts out, "possibly you should hold a mirror up to yourself, this issue has stood the test of time, it squarely lies on the sh...
Post a Comment
Read more