With industrial digitalization and the increasing interaction between the IT and OT environments, Siemens saw its products and solutions open to new attack vectors in operational environments, particularly due to a lack of security controls. As a foundation for establishing security controls (authentication, signing, encryption, etc.) in operational environments, Siemens needed an infrastructure to securely issue certificates to its production facilities and the products being manufactured.

Siemens addressed the need to securely issue certificates to manufactured products with a “product PKI” (public key infrastructure). The Siemens Product PKI provides and manages certificates that are stored on and used by Siemens products and solutions. The certificates might be used in bootstrapping or other operational scenarios for authentication purposes. Or the certificates might be used to prove that a device is a genuine Siemens device.

Siemens integrated cybersecurity in product design and manufacturing engineering to foster a cyber resilient environment in its own facilities as well as in the industrial facilities of its customers.