OPC Classic applications are often deployed with minimal security hardening implemented on them, due to the difficulties experienced in establishing and maintaining OPC Classic connectivity in more locked-down environments. Whatever security is employed, it is subject to changing conditions, requiring it to be periodically adjusted.
While OPC applications are often kept safe by relying on the layers of security implemented within the infrastructure they operate in, this should not be relied on as the only line of defence. With cybersecurity threats to industrial control systems growing daily, the time for hardening OPC Classic-based data infrastructure is now.
Matrikon’s new ‘Best Practices for Securing OPC Classic Applications’ whitepaper offers concrete security recommendations to enable IT and OT professionals to better secure OPC Classic-based data infrastructure. These recommendations can be used to help prevent unauthorised users and bad actors from compromising the confidentiality, integrity and availability of OPC Classic systems.
The following serves as a teaser of what’s covered in the full whitepaper:
OPC Classic (OPC) applications are used globally as a key connectivity standard for process control systems. This makes them an attractive target for bad actors attempting unauthorised access, or worse, to these systems. Securing OPC communications provides protection from unauthorised users seeking to access or corrupt data from process control systems, or interfere with the availability of process control systems data or devices.
All OPC applications are built on the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) infrastructure and are therefore considered COM components. As such, they can only run on a Windows platform. The Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) extends COM functionality to multi-user and network communication scenarios. All COM objects are constrained by the Windows DCOM security framework.
Besides DCOM security mechanisms, a COM client’s ability to connect to servers is also affected by firewalls, local security policies (LSP), Group Policy Objects (GPO), authentication requirements and application identities. In short, anything that affects security on a Windows platform can potentially affect OPC connectivity and communication.
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