Software obsolescence is probably the most undervalued risk in railway operations, which can become a cyber time-bomb, if unmanaged. It’s a new growing problem that Railway and Public Transit Operators will need to tackle or face the possibility of falling victim of ransomware or lose their compliance. Serge Van Themsche VP of Business Development at Cylus who has more than 25 years of experience in railways and headed the UITP working group on software obsolescence makes 6 recommendations to deal with such obsolescence issues.
Railway and Public Transport operators are today confronted with major obsolescence issues, a problem that will only grow with the increasing usage of COTS and IoT products. It’s easy to understand why. The expected long-life span of rolling stocks and other railway assets – that is from 20 to 40 years – collides with the much shorter life cycle of COTS hardware. The utilization of commercial firmware and Operational System within the railways’ OT (Operational Technology) environment and its hard-to-manage related software obsolescence, only amplifies the problem.
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