The three pillars of software access protection

The three pillars of software access protection are:

• Encryption (= no longer readable)
• Signing (= no longer exchangeable)
• Assignment of access rights (-> "Object Protection Level")

Protecting a project from unauthorized access therefore includes the following measures:

• Encryption and signing of the project components
• Defining the access rights to the project components
• Important: encryption and signing of the associated project file

The encryption without setting the correct access level will protect the corresponding file at operating system level, but would still allow access via the TwinCAT 3 Engineering.

Conversely, the setting of a correct access level would define the access within the TwinCAT 3 Engineering, but access to the source code via the operating system level would still be possible.

Without a signature, a project file or a project component could be exchanged for another file with the same name.