ODVA 2025 Industry Conference

As the European Union’s Cyber Resilience Act (EU CRA) and Machinery Safety Act move towards enforcement deadlines, industrial OEMs and machine builders face increasing pressure to ensure their products comply with stringent cybersecurity standards. These regulations emphasize the need for robust cybersecurity measures in industrial products, particularly focusing on communication protocols and secure development practices.

CIP Security plays a crucial role in securing Industrial Control Systems (ICS), offering confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation. The implementation of CIP Security involves key aspects such as device identity management, secure communication protocols, and vulnerability mitigation, which are essential for compliance with the EU CRA and Machinery Safety Act.

This paper explores the practical implementation of CIP Security within the context of these EU regulations, highlighting how it can be used as a cybersecurity technology to meet the imposed requirements. It reviews relevant literature, identifies challenges faced by OEMs and machine builders in achieving compliance, and outlines actionable steps for integrating security into CIP-connected devices. Additionally, it covers critical topics such as patch management, incident response protocols, and robust user access control, emphasizing the need for both retrofitting security features in existing devices and designing new devices with built-in security from the outset.

By addressing these key areas, the paper aims to serve as a comprehensive resource for industrial suppliers and machine builders navigating the evolving regulatory landscape, ensuring operational security, risk management, and long-term safety of connected devices in industrial environments.

Authors
Chatrapathi GV, Utthunga
Jegajith PT, Utthunga
Nithin SP, Utthunga
Brian Batke, Rockwell Automation
Jack Visoky, Rockwell Automation

As IT systems increasingly converge with OT (Operational Technology) environments, IPv6 readiness of protocols used in industrial automation becomes critical to ensure network-level interoperability in this broadening ecosystem. IPv6 is closing in on 50% of all Internet traffic per Google. The growing proliferation of IoT devices, sensors, and interconnected machinery on the OT floor demands more address space, which IPv4 cannot provide. After many years with no clear user demand for on-prem IPv6 operation, the scales are shifting in OT applications, and the time has come for EtherNet/IP to adopt these new patterns.

This paper will lay out a framework and proposed timeline for work across SIGs that will allow vendors to deploy EtherNet/IP-based solutions in an all IPv6 or hybrid network infrastructure. These enhancements will cover not just use of the longer IP address for all CIP communications (including Security and Safety) but will also propose enhancements to enable name-based operation as IPv6 addresses do not lend themselves well to either human use or device replacement use cases. Lastly, this paper will describe how IPv6 concepts and protocols of the IPv6 family can improve a user's device replacement and discovery experience.

Authors
Jakub Korbel, Rockwell Automation
Brian Batke, Rockwell Automation
Filip Zembok, Rockwell Automation

Achieving carbon neutrality in industrial automation demands a holistic approach that integrates cutting-edge technologies and efficient energy management practices. This paper examines the essential automation requirements for attaining carbon neutrality, the current challenges in adopting CIP Energy, and a proposed reference architecture to address these issues.

To reach carbon neutrality, industrial automation systems must incorporate real-time energy monitoring, dynamic demand-response capabilities, and energy optimization algorithms. These systems should seamlessly integrate renewable energy sources, manage energy storage, and optimize energy consumption across all processes. Additionally, implementing predictive maintenance can minimize energy waste and enhance overall efficiency. CIP Energy offers fundamental building blocks for such solutions, meeting most of the necessary requirements.

However, implementing these solutions is not without challenges. The limited portfolio of devices supporting CIP Energy, the scarcity of compatible software applications, and the lack of knowledge and training among system designers, automation engineers, and end users pose significant obstacles.

To overcome these challenges, we propose a straightforward reference architecture that assumes partial to full CIP Energy implementation at the device level. This architecture outlines how to build energy-aware and dynamic demand-response capabilities at each layer, based on the degree of CIP Energy implementation, including workarounds to address gaps. It also discusses scaling the solution for larger implementations and cross-functional integration. The objective is to encourage the adoption of CIP Energy in devices and other OEM software, and to solidify the architecture through ODVA, potentially including necessary upgrades to the CIP Energy specification.

Authors
Chatrapathi GV, Utthunga
Jegajith PT, Utthunga
Nithin SP, Utthunga

EtherNet/IP is positioned to have class-leading holistic protection against cybersecurity threats. The security effort began with TLS and DTLS applied to EtherNet/IP and has now progressed to include the holistic defense-in-depth of other aspects of EtherNet/IP. This paper discusses the protection of EDS files that are used to describe a CIP device. EDS files are intended to be shared publicly and installed by end users in tools from different vendors, as such they are an important aspect of an interconnected system of EtherNet/IP devices.  

Although environments which use EDS files may vary, this paper uses common assumptions to envision likely threats and their severity. The paper explores the threats on EDS files, severity of those threats, and what common security techniques can be used to mitigate these threats.

Authors
Jack Visoky, Rockwell Automation
Joakim Wiberg, ODVA

Following the acquisition of FDT technology by FieldComm Group (FCG), the industrial automation community has the opportunity to enhance our technologies to allow a single device integration standard to be used through discrete, hybrid and process automation disciplines. Double work on business logic and user interface for a device across different technologies and for use in different applications can be eliminated.

In this paper we outline the use cases that FCG – together with ODVA, PNO and OPC Foundation – wish to address. We will look at some of the initial technical assumptions that allow this work to dovetail into device description improvements already underway within ODVA. We will discuss the framework that will allow ODVA members to contribute to and benefit from this work.

Authors
Paul Brooks, Rockwell Automation
Wolfgang Hoeferlin, Endress+Hauser
Sean Vincent, FieldComm Group
Joakim Wiberg, ODVA

To achieve the visions of Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing, the ways in which control networks and information networks interact are becoming more frequent and more complex than ever. This presents some difficult challenges and numerous new options for users architecting production systems using control system networks like EtherNet/IP.  

More data is now required from manufacturing machinery and much of that data originates in devices participating in the production system. Devices with new functionality not directly related to controlling the production system are now being included on what is known as the “control network.” Beyond the question of “what is a control network?”, there are numerous other questions that should be clarified for the architects of manufacturing production systems. These questions include:

• How do we define an EtherNet/IP network? How should we define an EtherNet/IP control system network?
• Should devices not related to the functioning of the production system be included on an EtherNet/IP network?
• How many EtherNet/IP nodes can be on an EtherNet/IP network? Should a maximum number of nodes be specified?
• How should a reliable, efficient and high-performing EtherNet/IP network be architected?
• What are the requirements of an Ethernet network hosting an EtherNet/IP control network? 

In addition to introducing the “One Big Switch” optimum performance EtherNet/IP network design model, this paper addresses these questions and presents a wired Ethernet network architecture for EtherNet/IP conformant devices exchanging control signal traffic.

Authors
Gary Workman, Industrial Ethernet Consulting LLC
John Rinaldi, Real Time Automation

Agenda

• Report on Activities of the Corporation
• Keynote:  Industry 4.0 Security: Protocols, Risks, Trends and Challenges 
  Pedro Umbelino, Principal Research Scientist, Bitsight Technologies
  
  With the fourth industrial revolution at full steam (pun intended), Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT) networks are increasingly interconnected, leveraging the Internet to drive efficiency and innovation in critical infrastructure and manufacturing environments. Associated with this connectivity, an expanded attack surface comes along, exposing essential systems that make our society work to sophisticated attackers and, unfortunately, to not so sophisticated ones. Arguably, Industry 4.0 was not completely ready for the adversarial environment of the open Internet.
• Elections and Break
  
• Keynote:  Key Trends in Smart Manufacturing and Operational Resilience to Help Navigate Digital Transformation 
  Craig Resnick, ARC Advisory Group
  
  It is critical that device manufacturers and product developers get the latest market trends regarding the progress that their end user and OEM customers are making on their digital transformation journeys, including what technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Analytics, Edge, Cloud, Digital Twin, IT/OT/ET convergence, etc. are most in demand. ARC Advisory wanted to determine what are the key market trends that are driving smart manufacturing and operational resilience initiatives at end users and OEMs. This presentation will showcase the results of a very recent survey of over 500 respondents from the process, discrete, and hybrid industries to help determine what kinds of technologies and solutions are being used to help end users and OEMs progress in their digital transformation and sustainability journeys in the industrial AI era.
• Looking Ahead to the 24^th Term