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Secure Safety: Secure Remote Access to Critical Safety Systems in Offshore Installations

Abstract

Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) as defined in IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 are very important for the safety of offshore oil & natural gas installations. SIS typically include the Emergency ShutdownSystem (ESD) that ensures that process systems return to a safe state in case of undesirable events. Partly as a consequence of the evolving ""Integrated Operations"" concept, a need is emerging for remote access to such systems from vendors external to the operating company. Thisaccess will pass through a number of IP-based networks used for other purposes, including the open Internet. This raises a number of security issues, ultimately threatening the safety integrity of SIS. In this paper we present a layered network architecture that represents current good practice for a solution to ensure secure remote access to SIS. Also, a method for assessing whether a given solution for remote access to SIS is acceptable is described. The primary objective with thespecification of the remote access path is to defend the Safety Integrity Level (SIL) of SIS from security infringements. It also accommodates the special case when security functions have to be implemented within SIS.
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Category

Academic chapter/article/Conference paper

Language

English

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Digital / Software Engineering, Safety and Security

Year

2008

Publisher

Springer

Book

Autonomic and Trusted Computing: 5th International Conference, ATC 2008, Oslo, Norway, June 23-25, 2008, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Issue

5060

ISBN

9783540692942

Page(s)

121 - 133

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