Security Analysis of the Module Type Package Concept

Abstract

To address the need for flexibility of production plants in the process industry modularization is a widely accepted approach. In particular, the Module Type Package Concept described in VDI/VDE/NAMUR 2658 is seen as a possible core part for modularization. A clear separation of engineering efforts into plant-independent module engineering and plant-specific integration engineering as well as a fast integration of a module’s automation system into a higher-level process control system changes the fundamental automation architecture. However, in the state-of-the-art technical literature which has been analyzed and applied by the authors, few security considerations are made for modularization and especially the Module Type Package. This is even more problematic considering that even with an extensive field of security analysis, standards, and guidelines to secure conventional operational technology recent reports found severe vulnerabilities in those. This paper elaborates on security standards and guidelines to which the Module Type Package Concept should be compliant to achieve a high coverage regarding security requirements in the context of industrial automation and control systems. Based on this a security analysis of the Module Type Package Concept is performed on the IEC 62443, VDI/VDE 2182, and NIST SP 800-82.