Mitigating risks of digitalization through managed industrial security services

Digitalization has become a cornerstone of competitiveness in the industrial arena, especially in the cases of small lot sizes with many variants in the goods produced. Managers of industrial facilities have to handle the complexity that comes along with Industry 4.0 in diverse dimensions to leverage the potentials of digitalization for their sites. This article describes major drivers of this complexity in current industrial automation to outline the environment of today's challenges for managers of this technical transition-and shows how managed industrial security services can contribute to stabilize the industrial system. An outlook is given to future automation scenarios as well as the major concepts involved in their protection.