Invensys Triconex/Tofino OPC firewall

The Triconex/Tofino OPC firewall is designed to harden industrial safety systems against network accidents and attacks. It is claimed to be the first firewall that protects integrated applications based on OPC Classic, the widely used industrial integration protocol.

To enable greater interoperability of its Triconex safety systems, Invensys embedded OPC servers within its Tricon communications module (TCM). To ensure that these modules were cyber secure, Invensys teamed with Byres Security, which had introduced a content inspection firewall for the Modbus TCP protocol as part of Byres Security’s Tofino product line, in order to create a firewall specifically for Triconex systems. The two companies then enlisted the services of MTL Instruments to build the security hardware.

The Triconex/Tofino OPC firewall is designed to mitigate cyber security risks by managing the traffic to and from the Triconex TCM, providing assurance that a cyber incursion will not compromise integrated communications between the safety and critical control systems and supervisory HMI or distributed control systems.

The Triconex/Tofino OPC firewall provides security features developed specifically for Triconex and its embedded OPC Classic server to protect against malicious attacks and other threats to network operations. Users deploy the firewall in front of the Triconex OPC server, thwarting attacks and traffic storms before they reach the safety and critical control system. It automatically mitigates risks related to previously published DCOM vulnerabilities, while providing packet management and rate limiting to prevent network traffic problems that could have an adverse effect on the stability of the safety system.