February 14, 2018 — Eaton has announced it is collaborating with UL to advance cybersecurity for power management technologies across industries.

Eaton also says its cybersecurity research and testing facility in Pittsburgh is the first lab approved to participate in UL’s Data Acceptance Program for cybersecurity.

The program, which is in development and available on a limited basis, aligns Eaton’s testing methodologies and data generation with the UL Cybersecurity Assurance Program for UL Standards 2900-1 and UL 2900-2-2.

Through this program, Eaton, UL and other industry organizations are working together to establish foundational requirements for the testing of network-connectable industrial control systems to enable protection against vulnerabilities and security risk controls.

“We seek to help manufacturers, their customers and other stakeholders mitigate security risks through science-based assessment and evaluation,” said Ben Miller, president of the commercial and industrial business unit of UL. “Our collaboration with experts at Eaton is providing some of the crucial inputs to developing the technical expertise for new standards, and it’s helping advance UL’s efforts to protect our world’s critical infrastructure against ever-increasing cybersecurity threats.”

Eaton’s cybersecurity research and testing facility in Pittsburgh now has the capability to test Eaton products with intelligence or embedded logic to key aspects of the UL 2900-1 and 2900-2-2 Standards.

Additionally, Eaton’s Power Xpert Dashboard recently became the first power management product certified to the UL 2900-2-2 Standard for cybersecurity in industrial control systems.

According to a BDO 2016 report, cybersecurity is one of manufacturing’s most critical risk factors. The 2017 IBM X0Force Threat Intelligence Index also reports the number of security incidents in this sector was nearly 40% higher than the average across all industries.