Industrial plants: IP Protection in an increasingly (de)globalized economic System

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Presented at DeepSec 2024 by

Josef Rametsteiner

Customs duties and trade restrictions are increasingly presenting companies with logistical challenges. The trend is to relocate production capacities to the relevant countries to be close to the customer. But how can a company safely move an industrial plant abroad without risking the loss of its own IP (intellectual property)? By using a practical example, we demonstrate how to enable a commercially available Simatic S7 1500 PLC to keep control over the PLC program stored in the controller and its parameters. To achieve this, we implement strong cryptography within the device. The challenge here is that the device does not have the necessary functionality “out of the box”. How can we make sure that production does not take on a life of its own (secure manufacturing)? Regardless of the PLC used, industry has successfully implemented this practical example for years. Experience with programming PLC controls is not required.