Securing Manufacturing Intelligence for the Industrial Internet of Things

Widespread interest in the emerging area of predictive analytics is driving the manufacturing industry to explore new approaches to the collection and management of data through Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices. Analytics processing for Business Intelligence (BI) is an intensive task, presenting both a competitive advantage as well as a security vulnerability in terms of the potential for losing Intellectual property (IP). This article explores two approaches to securing BI in the manufacturing domain. Simulation results indicate that a Unified Threat Management (UTM) model is simpler to maintain and has less potential vulnerabilities than a distributed security model. Conversely, a distributed model of security out-performs the UTM model and offers more scope for the use of existing hardware resources. In conclusion, a hybrid security model is proposed where security controls are segregated into a multi-cloud architecture.