3 whitepapers explain OPC security, from Kraft Foods study

Link to more on OPC and security, below

Related reading and useful links follow, below.

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), process control and industrial manufacturing systems increasingly rely on Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) for Process Control (OPC) to make the connection to enterprise systems. OPC’s benefit is that it’s an open protocol with the specifications freely available, and more vendors creating interconnections all the time. A drawback, however, is that engineers must wade through a large amount of very detailed information to answer basic OPC security questions. That has made securely deploying OPC applications a challenge for most engineers and technicians.According to PAControl.com, a joint research team with staff from BCIT, Byres Research and Digital Bond were commissioned by Kraft Foods Inc. to address this need for security guidance on OPC deployment. The objective of this study was to create a series of simple, authoritative white papers that summarized current good practices for securing OPC client and server applications running on Microsoft Windows-based hosts.The full study is divided into three Good Practice Guides for Securing OPC as follows:

OPC Security White Paper #1– Understanding OPC and How it is Used: An introduction to what OPC is, what are its basic components and how is it actually deployed in the real world.

OPC Security White Paper #2– OPC Exposed: What are the risks and vulnerabilities incurred in deploying OPC in a control environment?

OPC Security White Paper #3– Hardening Guidelines for OPC Hosts: How can a server or workstation running OPC be secured in a simple and effective manner?

For more OPC news, see: OPC Foundation Certification Test Lab opens in North America and

Ensuring OPC interoperability, security

.For a lot more on security, see:

Industrial Cyber Security blog

by Matt Luallen and Steve Hamburg of Encari, for Control Engineering. – Edited by Renee Robbins , senior editor Control Engineering News Desk Register here and scroll down to select your choice of eNewsletters free.

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