Premium secure into the future. CLAAS relies on proven public key infrastructure
The Management of CLAAS recognised at an early stage that new, forward-looking business segments had to be developed in order to position the company as a market leader. Be it smart farming, parallel driving, predictive maintenance or software updates "over the air" – digitisation is an integral part of the new business segments in agriculture. For the technical implementation of these services or business segments it is imperative that data can be transmitted via wireless interfaces, among other things. Protecting this data and shielding communication against unauthorised access or manipulation have top priority in this respect.
To ensure this, CLAAS has launched the project "Security@CLAAS". The aim was to establish a comprehensive guideline for the implementation of cyber security in the product development of CLAAS. On the infrastructure side, it was necessary to set up a new public key infrastructure (PKI). This acts as a trustworthy CLAAS instance and thus lays the foundation for the protection of networked agricultural machinery against unauthorised access and manipulation. The PKI provides all central cryptographic functions, such as the generation of keys and electronic certificates or the calculation of digital signatures.
secunet supported CLAAS in the conception and implementation of the new PKI solution and supplied the corresponding product in the form of the eID PKI Suite: CLAAS is thus following the approach of establishing the classic corporate PKI and the PKI for vehicles and machines as separate instances in each case. By using the secunet eID PKI Suite, the confidentiality, availability and integrity of the data to be transmitted are consistently guaranteed and the machines are reliably secured against manipulation.
Benefits for CLAAS:
- Investment and future-proof architecture through continuous product development and maintenance
- Multi-platform support and flexible interfaces enable ideal integration into existing IT landscape
- Standard conformity and flexibility of the overall system allow future legal and technological requirements to be implemented without difficulty
- Project-specific adaptations can be implemented flexibly and promptly
"secunet supplied both conceptual parts and the technology for the CLAAS product PKI. The flexibility and easy integration of this technology into the CLAAS IT systems were the decisive factors in this decision. The flexibility paid off especially in the start-up phase of the networked electronic components: secunet was able to make last-minute adjustments. The speed at which the CLAAS product PKI was established should also be emphasised: It took just six weeks from the start of implementation to commissioning."
