Using Ignition for ICS (OT) asset management

ICS = Industrial Control Systems.
OT = Operational Technology (as opposed to Information Technology).

There are a wide variety of security tools for industrial control asset management. These typically search a specified IP address range for devices and populate a table with the results of the probes typically obtaining MAC addresses, manufacturer, model, firmware version, etc. In some cases they are able to scan the backplane on a PLC and report on the modules installed. Some then compare this information with US government lists of known vulnerabilities to highlight risks.

I’m wondering how much of this is possible in Ignition and how easily?

There’s a Python ICS asset management project on GitHub but it hasn’t been updated in three years.

Any thoughts? Anyone interested?

Short answer yes it can be done. The long of it, probably not easily. There are large vendors like Nozomi or Dragos in this space that have entire teams development to this kind of thing. I have deployed Nozomi before with great success along side of ignition. Would I ever spend the Engineering hours to build it into Ignition probably not. If I had all the time in the world and wanted a single system maybe. Reach out to me if you need a consultant/ design into a solution like this.

1 Like

Thanks, Dillon. I just needed a reality check. I’ll look into the commercial solutions.

I wanted to do this kind of stuff with Ignition. I will not try to replace some of the commercial solutions. But it is still interesting to create something in Ignition that can easily integrate to all other parts of your system. Would you be keen to work on a side project for this one?

I wanted to do this kind of stuff with Ignition. I will not try to replace some of the commercial solutions. But it is still interesting to create something in Ignition that can easily integrate to all other parts of your system. Would you be keen to work on a side project for this one?