Security, Users and Roles

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About the Security Module

Key Concepts and Terminology

* Users

* Permissions
* Policies

* Runtime Users

How the Security Module Works

Features Highlights

Protecting Access to Project Configuraion 

Allowing Role Security for Operators Interfaces

Integrates with Active Directly, LDAP or other systems

FDA 21 CFR 11 Compliance

   Configuring the Security Module

        * Configuration Workflow

        * Creating and Managing Users

** Pre-defined Users

** Runtime Users 

* Defining Permissions and Policies

* Applying Security on Project Configuration

* Applying Security on Displays and User Interface

Working with the Report Module

* Runtime Execution

* Customizing Login Procedures

        * Integration with Other Modules

Managing Users with Scripts

       * Advanced Features and Options

Troubleshooting and Best Practices

* Common Issues and Solutions

* Best Practices and Recommendations

* Security Module Runtime Attributes

About Security module

The Security module is crucial for any control system or industrial application. It provides robust security measures to prevent unauthorized access, data breaches, system downtime, and other security-related issues. The module offers tools such as user authentication and access control features that allow system administrators to manage user accounts, assign specific rules and permissions based on their responsibilities and job functions, and restrict access to sensitive data and critical actions on the system.

The Security module provides high granularity access control during the product configuration phase, allowing multiple users to work on the same project safely and coordinate teamwork. It also manages user authorization and access control when the project runs, ensuring only authorized accesses can modify the configuration.

Additionally, the Security module ensures that only identified logger client users can open Displays, execute allowed commands, read or write specific Tags, and perform predefined behaviors. This creates a secure and controlled environment, giving users peace of mind knowing their system is protected from security threats.

The Security module was created to implement technical requirements for critical infrastructures and regulated process automation, including FDA 21 CFR Part 11.

Key Concepts

Users

Anyone accessing the project, either on the engineering or runtime mode, is a User.

Guest Access

If the User did not execute any Log On or Identification procedure, it will be recognized as the pre-defined Guest User, which is equivalent to an anonymous access.

Permissions

The Permissions concept ensures that users access only the necessary functionalities and data for their job, reducing the risk of security breaches and unauthorized activities. The group-based Permissions allow configuring which functions users can access while editing or during the project runtime.

Policy

The Policies enable the management of the requirements on User Identification and Session control. For instance, you can setup a Policy for minimum of 8 letters passwords (Identification Policy) and an automated LogOff after 8 hours of usage (Session Policy). Then, you setup which Users will be required to follow that Policy.

Runtime Users

It is a very common Project requirement to dynamic add and remove Users. Instead of modifying the Project every time, the platform allows the concept of Runtime Users which are dynamically created and retried from an external encrypted SQL database, but other Identification server can be integrated. 

The combination of the Runtime Users and the ones defined at the SecurityUsers table are called Project Users.

Windows AD Integration

Instead of validating the Users again, the credentials in the Project configuration and the identification of the User connection can be automatically executed using our native Windows Active Directory integration. This functionality in only available for the Users connecting from Windows operating systems.

AD/LDAP Server Integration

When the integration with Windows AD is not available, it is still possible for an automated identification using the business server to define an LDAP server to be used by the project.

User Settings

The Named Users with authorization to access the Project are defined in the SecurityUsers table on Security → Users.

Pre-defined Users

The following user names are configured by default:

Users Properties

Removing Users

You have three ways to disable users:

• Blocking: Use to block the user’s access. You may want to use this for users who are no longer in your company.
• Flagging as deleted: Use to block the user’s access and flag the user as deleted, without deleting the user. You may want to use this for users who are no longer in your company.
• Deleting: Removes the user completely from the system.

The method used varies according to the Security requirements on managing users for your application.

Permissions Settings

The project permissions are defined in the SecurityUsers table on Security → Permissions.

Edit permissions

Run permissions

Pre-defined Security groups

The platform comes with a few predefined Permission groups that you can use, or you can create your own.

Connecting Users with Permission Groups

At the Security → Users table, the column Permissions can be updated to include all Permission Groups authorized to each user. Select multiple rows, right-click to edit the combined rows, when applying same settings to more than one user.

Disabling Windows Applications Switch

When Task Switch is disabled, the following actions/keys will be inhibited for that User:

• Access to the Start button and the Task Toolbar
• Windows Logo button
• Ctrl + Alt + Del
• Ctrl + ESC
• Alt + Tab
• Alt + F4
• Windows Logo + L

Policies Settings

You can configure settings that you can apply to users.

The platform comes with a few predefined policies that you can use, or you can create your own.

Identification properties

Esign properties

Session properties

Applying Policies to Users

The policies you create are available to be used on SecurityUsers tables, at the column Policy

Runtime Users Security Management

When running the application, the Login procedure will accept all users defined in the Project Configuration, but additional users defined dynamicaly during the runtime execution can be included.

The Runtime Users are stored in the default database, defined on Datasets → Dos → RuntimeUsers. You can customize the databased used to that storage at the Module Datasets. You can populate that database directly before starting the runtime, or after the project is running, you can create or modify the users with the methods in the Security Namespace

To create a Runtime Display to mange the Users, there is platform Plugin with a template application.

Go to Project → Plugins and import the Plugin named UserManagement. It will create the names SecurityAccounts and ChangePass to assist in the User management.

Adding Runtime Users 

Below you can find more details regarding the available RuntimeUser methods in the Security namespace.

@Security.NewRuntimeUser(string name, out int errorCode)
// Creates a new RuntimeUser
//  name:  User  Name
// errorCode: Error code (output)
// Returns: String containing the error message (if error) or empty (if not error)

@Security.AddRuntimeUser(string name, string permissionsStr, string password, string passwordHint, string policyStr, string profilePhone, string profileCompleteName, bool oneTimePassword)
// Add Runtime User
// name:  User  Name
// permissions Str: Permissions
// password: Password
// passwordHint: Password hint
// policyStr: Policy
// profileEmail: Profile email
// profilePhone: Profile phone
// profileCompleteName: Profile complete name
// oneTimePassword: flag (true or false) to set a One Time Password setting. If true, a password change is required after first login
// Returns: String containing error message (if error) or empty (if not error)

Customizing Login Procedures

The Login page is editable. You just need to select the display with name LogOn to edit its layout. As you can see in the code behind of that display, it calls the method Security.Logon() to do the validation of the user. If you want to perform any other user validation, you just need to modify that logic calling your own validation system, and then calling the LogOn method, according to the results of your validation.

Another way to customize the logon is to put your own custom logic on the ClientStartup script task. The script is executed on any computer that is connected to the server application. You can perform verifications based on computer IP, computer name, Windows Active-Directory Logged user, or any other criteria to specify if the user is allowed to start the application and which should be their credentials. After that, you can either call client.Shutdown to terminate the application if it was an unauthorized access or Security.Logon() with a user that matches the selected security profile.

By default, when starting the application on a client computer, instead of requesting a login, we start the system with the user GUEST. The user Guest is equivalent to an anonymous login. If you do not want that on your application, just replace the startup page with a page requesting the Logon information.

The Security Namespace

The namespace Security has all the runtime information regarding the security system.

The Client object has information about the current user logged at that client station:

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