Welcome to Safety Sound Bites, your go-to resource for quick insights that keep you a step ahead in functional safety. Think of these as your bite-sized, expert-approved "mini-blog posts." We're kicking things off with an essential topic: cybersecurity.
The industrial cybersecurity SDL (security development lifecycle) standard IEC 62443-4-1 lists four sources for its contents. These include IEC 61508, which I am well aware of, DO178B, which I have read (well, DO178C at least), and this book. It cost me Euro 10 (around $10) second-hand, so it seems like a good deal. I already had a quick flick through the contents. I already like it based on the foreword where the author states, "...is to remind you that where security is concerned, lunch is expensive. If you don't pay for it now, you'll pay an order of magnitude more for it later".
Read the post here for more details.
If you read about cybersecurity, you will often encounter Alice and Bob. But did you know a whole family of characters is used to illustrate cybersecurity issues?
For instance:
For more information, see Alice and Bob on Wikipedia and the post here.
This is the definition of degraded mode in cybersecurity standard IEC 62443-4-2. Could we use this definition in safety standards, or is it already covered by safe states or redundancy requirements in functional safety standards?
I think degraded mode is more like limp home mode in automotive, where your car will still drive, perhaps only at 60km/h. I particularly like the bit where it emphasizes that "anticipated in the design of the control system." The degraded mode increases availability and maintains safety by restricting what tasks the system can still accomplish.
See more information on this post.
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