Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated

Michael A Bush

Taryl Jon Jasper

David Dale Brandt

Brian Alan Batke

Craig D Anderson

Ramdas M Pai

Steven J Scott

John C Wilkinson

Robert A Brandt

Glenn B Schulz

Bryan L Singer

Jack Michael Visoky

Clark L Case

Ronald Eric Bliss

Mark Burton Anderson

Michael B Miller

Jeffrey W Hegemier

Alex Laurence Nicoll

Joseph P Izzo

Kyle A Crum

Kevin E Colloton

Kevin Michael Tambascio

Ardaman Singh Grewal

Mark H Anderson

Dukki Chung

Steven Terry Seidlitz

Steven T Seidlitz

James E Morgenson

Donald A Smith

Karel Stryczek

Michael V Wood

David P Sullivan

Jeffrey A Shearer

An industrial safety architecture integrates employee identity and enterprise-level security policy into plant-floor functional safety systems, allowing control and safety systems on the plant floor to regulate safe interactions with hazardous controlled machinery based on user identity or role. The architecture leverages existing employee identity and security policy data maintained on the corporate level of an industrial enterprise to manage identity- and/or role-based control and safety on the plant level. Safety authority systems at both the corporate level and the plant level of the industrial enterprise obtain employee and security policy data from corporate-level systems and provides this data in as SIL-rated manner to industrial control and safety systems on the plant floor, where the identity and security policy information is used by functional safety systems to control access to industrial systems as a function of user identity, role, certifications, or other qualifications.

User security credentials as an element of functional safety

An industrial security policy configuration system generates and implements security policies for industrial automation systems based on design data for the industrial systems generated by device manufacturers, system integrators, original equipment manufacturers, or the owners of the industrial assets during the design of the industrial systems. the collected design data to a security rule set defining device-level communication privileges. The system translates the collected design data to a security rule set defining device-level communication privileges, which are then translated to a comprehensive set of security policies customized to the requirements of the industrial systems represented by the design data. By leveraging the rich set of available design data to identify or infer security requirements and generate suitable security configurations, the system can mitigate the need to manually configure security policies based on human judgments regarding normal and abnormal network traffic.

Automated discovery of security policy from design data

Techniques to facilitate protection of control system content used in an industrial automation environment are disclosed herein. In at least one implementation, the control system content for use in the industrial automation environment is received, wherein the control system content comprises controller program code that directs an industrial controller to drive a machine system. Content protection instructions for the control system content are also received, wherein the content protection instructions comprise restrictions on execution of the control system content. An execution license that includes process-related constraints for the control system content is generated based on the content protection instructions. The execution license is applied to the control system content to generate protected content, wherein use of the control system content is granted subject to the process-related constraints of the execution license.

Industrial automation control system content protection

A secure method for establishing communications to provision modules in an industrial control system generates a certificate signing request to obtain a signed security certificate. A mobile device is located proximate to the module with the certificate signing request, and the mobile device has previously established itself as a secure communication interface on the network. The mobile device establishes a first connection between the module and the mobile device via a short-range protocol and a s second connection between the mobile device and a signing server via a network. The mobile device retrieves the certificate signing request via the first connection and transmits the certificate signing request to the signing server via the second connection. Because the mobile device has previously established itself as a secure interface, the transmission of the certificate signing request to the signing server may be made via a secure connection.

Method and apparatus for secure device provisioning in an industrial control system

Industrial controller modules are configured with security components that implement backplane-level security protocols, thereby preventing installation of unauthorized modular devices on the backplane of an industrial controller. When a modular device is installed in the controller's chassis and interface with the backplane, security components in the processor module or other supervisory module initiates exchange of authentication data with the modular device via the backplane. The authentication data can comprise one or more security challenges to which the modular device must respond correctly before the modular device is permitted to operate on the backplane. These backplane-level security protocols can prevent installation of rogue modules that may be used to collect proprietary control data or interfere with control processes.

Authenticated backplane access

An automation control system is provided that includes an interface device configured to enable a user to monitor, control, or monitor and control processes of the automation control system. The interface device includes a display that presents a graphical-user-interface that enables the user to monitor, control, or monitor and control the process of the automation control system. Further, a processor renders a plurality of interface screens to the display. The processor determines a current set of access rights of a protected interface screen of the plurality of interface screens, at least one object of the protected interface screen, or both. The access rights are inherited from access rights associated with one or more of the plurality of interface screens, a folder containing the at least one interface screen, or both. Further, the processor provides access, via the protected interface screen, to monitor, control, or monitor and control the processes based upon the set of access rights.

Flexible security control environment

A model-based industrial security policy configuration system implements a plant-wide industrial asset security policy in accordance with security policy definitions provided by a user. The configuration system models the collection of industrial assets for which diverse security policies are to be implemented. An interface allows the user to define security policies for a plant environment at a high-level by grouping the industrial assets into security zones, and defining any additional communication permissions in terms of asset-to-asset, asset-to-zone, or zone-to-zone conduits. Based on the model and these policy definitions, the system generates asset-level security setting instructions configured to set appropriate security settings on one or more of the industrial assets, and deploys these instructions to the appropriate assets in order to implement the defined security policy.

Model-based security policy configuration and enforcement in an industrial automation system

Selectively enabling communication of dual protocol packets from a source device directed to a service of an object class at target devices is provided. Steps can include providing an access control database including an entry correlating a source device, an object class and a service of the object class; from a source device, receiving a dual protocol packet including a frame and a field according to a first network communication protocol and an encapsulated packet of a second network communication protocol; obtaining from the frame, an identification of the source device; obtaining from the encapsulated packet, an identification and a service of an object class to which the encapsulated packet is directed; comparing the identification of the source device, the identification and service of the object class, and the entry of the access control database; and selectively transmitting the dual protocol packet as a function of the comparison.

Firewall method and apparatus for industrial systems

Techniques to facilitate temporary escalation of access privileges for a control program associated with a machine system in an industrial automation environment are disclosed. In at least one implementation, a request is received from a user for a temporary access level increase to utilize protected functions of the control program. An encrypted string is generated comprising a temporary password authorized to access the protected functions of the control program. The encrypted string is provided to the user, wherein the user provides the encrypted string to an administrator and the administrator authenticates the user for the temporary access level increase, decrypts the temporary password, and provides the temporary password to the user. A login request is received from the user with the temporary password, and the temporary access level increase is responsively granted to allow the user to utilize the protected functions of the control program.

One time use password for temporary privilege escalation in a role-based access control (RBAC) system

Method and apparatus for use with systems including networked resources where communication between resources is via dual packet protocols wherein a first protocol includes a frame that specifies a destination device/resource and a data field and the second protocol specifies a final destination device/resource and includes a data field, where the second packets are encapsulated in the first protocol packet frames, the method including specifying access control information for resources, for each first protocol packet transmitted on the network, intercepting the first protocol packet prior to the first protocol destination resource, examining a subset of the additional embedded packet information to identify one of the intermediate path resources and the final destination resource, identifying the access control information associated with the identified at least one of the intermediate path resources and the final destination resource and restricting transmission of the first protocol packet as a function of the identified access control information.

An automation control system is provided with an interface device configured to enable a user to monitor, control, or monitor and control processes of the automation control system. Upon power on or initialization of the interface device or when a previously logged in user is logged off, the interface device logs in a guest account associated with a user role having a defined set of access rights and provides access to monitor, control, or monitor and control the processes based upon the set of access rights.

An improved system and method for controlling access of components to industrial automation system resources by reference to the various operational states of the industrial automation system. A central access control system includes a processing circuitry, interface circuitry configured to receive information pertaining to the operational state of an automation system, memory circuitry, and a display and user interface. In operation, access to automation components are either allowed or denied based on the designation of an operational state of an automation system.

Growing community of inventors

Hudson, OH, United States of America

Michael A Bush