Five Ways to Improve Cybersecurity on the Food Production Floor

Production floors are full of connected equipment that was never designed with security in mind. Here are five steps we took at Northbay Harvest Foods.

1. Know every connected device

Build an inventory of controllers, sensors and HMIs, and who can reach them.

2. Separate the plant network

Keep production systems apart from office email and the internet.

3. Control remote access

Give vendors time-limited, logged access instead of always-on connections.

4. Back up line configurations

Keep offline copies of PLC programs and recipes so a line can be restored quickly.

5. Practise the response

Run a short drill each quarter so operators know what to do when a screen goes dark.