Honeywell Takes Aim at Security & Safety

Unless you've been living in a cave or completely focused on the fate of your favorite baseball or basketball team, you're bound to know that the issue of cybersecurity is heating up. If Stuxnet wasn't enough, now there's its evil twin Flame to add to your worries about your computer systems. So it's really no surprise that Honeywell is stepping up to the plate and coming at security and its good twin safety with more applications and services for its customers.

Yesterday at HUG12, the company announced the formation of its IT Solutions Group, with the brief to help customers wrap their arms around what they need to do to keep their systems secure. See the link above for more details.

At the same time, the company announced a number of upgrades to its security and safety applications line. In a presentation called "Integrated Safety and Security Solutions," Mike Torbett, consultant at Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS), and Adrian Fielding, senior manager for Industrial Security Solutions at HPS, discusseda the improvements to Honeywell's line of radar video surveillance (RVS) and automatic identification systems (AISs).

If you're still thinking that a firewall and a security guard at the gate are enough to keep your facilities safe and secure, think again. Ask yourself why the big dogs in process automation are all beating the safety and security drum. Profit, sure. But upgrading safety and security systems is an idea whose time has more than come.