Industrial control systems, of which the Niagara Framework is a classic example, have traditionally avoided security breaches by employing obscure protocols and running on in-house intranets that were not exposed to the Internet. This “security by obscurity” is no longer viable. Increasingly, data sharing, data acquisition, and peer-to-peer data exchange are standard business requirements. As data management and collection moves from large equipment into every-day appliances, preventing malicious data theft, denial of service, and command and control take-over becomes an imperative.

Data integrity and communication security are high priorities for the framework designers.