ENCS approved secure routers by WM Systems

The 450MHz Alliance organization has posted a news on its website about our new secure router. The full text of the independent technology organization’s announcement can be found below.

WM Systems, a leading global supplier of industrial cellular communication devices, announced the launch of its 450MHz Secure M2M Router for utilities. At the same time the company also announced it has joined the 450 MHz Alliance, an industry association representing interests of stakeholders.

Although the frequency is only gaining relevance in mission-critical networks in recent years, WM System has a long history with 450MHz products. 8 years ago the company launched its first 450MHz CDMA products, a few years ago the LTE450 product line and most recently the 450MHz Cat.M-NB products. Since the beginning the company focused on utilities and being an expert in mobile technologies, realized that this frequency was destined for the smart grid, as it provides wider reach, security and resilience at a reasonable cost. Ever since the company has been a true evangelist of the technology.

Grid operators are increasingly automating their medium voltage substations and lines with distribution automation and high voltage substation with substation automation. They use these systems to get power measurements to reliably integrate renewables and electric vehicles, and to remotely control the grid to recover from power outages more quickly. Automation increases the possible impact of cyber-attacks. If attackers succeed in switching off the power in a large part of those, it can take a lot of time to recover.

Back in 2015, one of the largest independent energy system operators in the Netherlands joined the European Network for Cyber Security (ENCS), an organization founded by utilities, committed to improving the security of the Smart Grid across Europe.

In 2020, the same utility published a tender for 450MHz M2M ROUTERS for devices that comply with ENCS strict security requirements. To implement the necessary security requirements WM Systems had to redesign the product almost from scratch.

The upgraded secure router uses an OTP-enabled memory chip. Chip SIM (MFF2) option and supercapacitor protection were also introduced with the latest security protocols for maximum security.

The secure boot feature ensures that the code running on our routers is authentic. This feature is hardware-anchored, meaning the first instructions that run on the CPU are stored in immutable hardware, where they cannot be tampered with. When the device boots, the microloader verifies that the next set of instructions is genuine by validating the private key on that set of instructions. To support secure boot and the encrypted storage of all customer data the flash memory was replaced by an encrypted eMMC.

To securely install code and assets after production, we offer a trustworthy remote management infrastructure (Device Manager solution), where operations are controlled through secure channels or cryptographically secured tokens.

Secure Isolation and Execution – Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)

A TEE as an isolated execution environment provides security features such as isolated execution, integrity of applications executing with the TEE, along with confidentiality of their assets.

Trust in Hardware

As a result of all these security features, our clients can trust the hardware. Even if someone would try to physically tamper the device, it would not succeed in stealing data or disrupt its normal operation.

Closed Manufacturing Loop

Closed, secured, and audited manufacturing processes are also very important. WM Systems is responsible for R&D, product design, hardware and software development, which allows us to maintain a closed-loop manufacturing process.

The SECURE M2M INDUSTRIAL ROUTER router offers Ethernet port, optional RS485 / Modbus port and Mbus port.

It is currently available with two cellular module options: LTE NB/Cat.M or LTE Cat.1 both on 450MHz with fallback to the public 2G network for extra network resiliency.

About WM Systems

WM Systems is a leading global manufacturer of industrial cellular connectivity products. It has sold more than a million devices to utilities around the world since it was founded 20 years ago.