Effective OPC Security for Control Systems

For the past decade, industrial control systems administrators and engineers wanted to believe that ‘air gaps’ or ‘security by obscurity’ would keep them safe from security threats.  Those days are over - recent security incidents such as the Stuxnet worm are a loud wakeup call for the industrial automation industry.

This White Paper explains the security advantages of limiting network interfaces and protocols, and recommends using OPC as a communications standard because of its ease of use and its widespread deployment.

It goes on to discuss how different defensive layers can be employed to provide high security when using OPC technology.  The paper also outlines a simple and cost effective way to secure OPC that can be deployed in almost any industrial facility.

Authors:

Eric Byres, CTO, Byres Security Inc.
Darek Kominek, Manager, OPC Marketing, MatrikonOPC

Download the White Paper

Effective OPC Security for Control Systems (1.4 MB)

Related Links

• "OPC Security: More than the Sum of the Parts" - April 12, 2011 blog article about the White Paper.
• May 11, 2011 Webcast  "OPC Security you can Bank on" - participate in this live event with presenters Eric Byres of Byres Security, Darek Kominek of MatrikonOPC and Tom Burke of the OPC Foundation.
• OPC Feature Page - for links to multiple Byres Security White Papers on OPC Security.