This is a continuation of a series discussing different use cases in Automation Systems Management, and will focus on the operational advantages of knowing exactly what software is running on the control systems in your environment. This post is coming to you from ABB Automation and Power World in Houston, Texas, so if you happen to be here as you read this come find us in booth 8 of the Technology Expo. To see the first part of this series on managing ports and services, click here.

Here’s a scenario for you to ponder, one you very well may have experienced already – it has been determined that one of the applications you use (or at least a specific version of it) has been found to have a vulnerability, one that could potentially threaten the availability or security of a system in your environment. Whether the patch or new version has been released and you want to make sure it’s been applied, or there is no fix yet and you need to know where this application or version exists so you can take appropriate measures to secure your system, it is critical you have a procedure in place to know exactly where this vulnerable software exists.

Industrial Defender can help you effectively manage this exact situation and many others like it by keeping an automated, up to date list of all software installed on every critical asset in your environment, including the version number. Through this technology, you can easily query and filter your application list to find a specific application installed anywhere, all the applications installed on a specific system, location, or server type, be notified of any changes to the installed applications or a change in version, and keep historical details so you know exactly when an application was installed, removed, or updated. The built in reporting mechanisms allow you to compare the installed applications on two systems, against a baseline or expected standard, or even for one system against two points in time.

Since this post is coming to you from an ABB event, I’ll include screenshots from ABB systems showing some of these capabilities – as a vendor agnostic application though, this automated tracking can be applied to virtually systems from virtually any vendor.

Installed software sorted by application:

Installed Software sorted by system:

If you happen to be here at ABB Automation and Power World, stop by our booth for a full demo of how this technology works and a discussion on how it can help you improve operational efficiency and potentially help meet compliance reporting requirements. If you cannot join us in Houston, feel free to reach out to schedule a web demo, or click here to see a recorded webcast highlighting these capabilities and others.