eWON, the manufacturer of industrial routers for secure PLC remote access, has announced that more than 5,000 of its users are already benefiting from its 2-factor authentication (2FA) security feature, which was launched at the beginning of 2015.
The 2FA security feature is aimed at protecting eWON customers from unauthorised access to their account and machine information. 2FA prevents hackers from using stolen passwords in order to gain access to remote PLCs and machine networks. The eWON eCatcher software is sold and supported in the UK by Industrial Data Communications specialist M.A.C. Solutions (UK) Limited.
The new version of eCatcher, the eWON remote access VPN software, includes 2FA in order to protect the connection identity. This feature requires both “something you know” and “something you have” – a combination of login credentials and a security code that is text messaged to the user’s phone.
For more than 15 years now, eWON has provided machine builders, OEMs and system integrators with secure PLC remote access for maintenance and diagnostics purposes. Due to the increasing frequency of Internet-based attacks, security is at the forefront of eWON’s remote access strategy.
When security matters
Security is a major concern within the automation industry. Attackers are constantly seeking new ways to compromise valuable data, with 76% of network intrusions exploiting weak or stolen credentials. Furthermore, 62% of IP breaches in the manufacturing, services and technology industries involved stolen credentials, according to DBRI (Data Breach Investigations Report). This is where the 2FA feature comes into play.
2FA is a secure identification mechanism that combines two different components for unambiguous authentication. In other words, 2FA adds an extra step to the user login procedure. This is based on the principle that an unauthorised actor is unlikely to be able to supply both factors required for access. While this is not new technology – banking institutions and many other businesses and service companies are developing it to protect their users, eWON is the first industrial communications company to add this new security layer to its customer accounts.
