China’s Sungrow 1st Firm to Win DEKRA Cyber Security Certificate for RE

Chinese inverter brand Sungrow announced recently that the company received a coveted international industrial cyber security certification, being the first one to win the certificate in the renewable energy industry.

The Hefei-headquartered firm’s implementation of the IEC 62443-4-1 industry security standard was certified by the international certification organization DEKRA, making Sungrow the first company with CB certification of this standard in the RE industry. The company considers this an important milestone in Sungrow’s ongoing commitment to cyber security.

The standard IEC 62443-4-1 specifies process requirements for the secure development of products used in industrial control and automation system (IACS) and defines a secure development lifecycle for developing and maintaining secure products. The standard sees cyber security as an ongoing process and caters to the development of IACS components that are secure-by-design. The integration of these components into an industrial environment has to be governed by defense-in-depth policies and practices.

The standard has been incorporated into the IECEE CB certification system. It is one of the best practice standards selected by the EU Network and Information Security Directive (NIS Directive). Countries including the United States, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia and India have adopted the standard as their national code.

Sungrow’s executives claim that from design and development to testing and implementation, the company is strictly in line with the rigorous secure product development life-cycle process, including the security management, specification of security requirements, secure by design, secure implementation, security verification and validation testing, management of security-related issues, security update management and security guidelines.

James Wu, Vice President of Sungrow, says, “Sungrow iSolarCloud system solution passed all requirements of the standard. We’re proud to be among the few cyber security companies offering a certified solution that is designed with security into products from the beginning of the development life cycle. This is all thanks to the diligent work of our dedicated technical team.”

Industrial cyber security is especially vital in an agile Industrial IoT (IIoT) environment and the company considers the recent certification to just be the tip of the iceberg regarding Sungrow’s commitment to industrial security.