Runtime System Security

You can protect a Plant SCADA runtime system with user-based security. This can be integrated with existing Windows™ user groups, or you can create your own user accounts in Plant SCADA.

In both cases, users are assigned to "roles" that determine the permissions they are granted. Roles use "privileges" to restrict access to specific commands (such as those that operate specialized machinery or acknowledge critical alarms), and "areas" to control access to geographical or logical sections within a plant.

To set up security in Plant SCADA, you firstly need to consider how you will implement areas and privileges within your system.

• Areas define sections within a production facility, creating geographical or logical boundaries that can be used to restrict access.

• Privileges define the level of access that is applied to system elements within your project.

Once you have planned how areas and privileges will be managed (and how they can work in tandem), you can start adding roles and users to the system.

• Roles define a set of permissions (based on privileges and areas) that can be assigned to users of the same type.

• Users represent the individuals (or groups) that need to access to the runtime system.

  You can define users in Plant SCADA, or you can integrate Windows™ user groups. Every user needs to be assigned to a role to be granted privileges.

This section of the help also describes how to limit access to a computer while Plant SCADA is running (see Secure Runtime Computers).