The partly historical
infrastructure is
deceptive: the technology
is state-of-the-art
Picture below:
Frank Jakob is Head
of Control Engineering,
here showing the
“home” of IRMA
“The only time you
notice us is when
something happens and
then nothing works.”
Thorsten Hamann,
Stadtwerke Bad Pyrmont
required certifi cation to continue operating, regu-
lated by DIN 27001. “During the last audit, it was
determined that our central fi rewall no longer met
the cybersecurity requirements,” Frank Jakob tells
us.
Monitoring in the background
“So it was urgently time to dive deep into the is-
sue. And in such a way that we will be able to carry
out our own administrative work here in the future.
And that’s when we became aware of IRMA.” So
what does this abbreviation mean? Hauke Kästing,
one of Phoenix Contact’s security experts, ex-
plains: “IRMA stands for Industrial Risk Manage-
ment Automation, and is based on a case-hardened
Linux application installed on an industrial PC
from Phoenix Contact. The system works in the
background and independently monitors all par-
ticipants and communication connections.”
It is not the content of the communication that
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