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TASE 2.0 and ICCP

Introduction

Telecontrol Application Service Element (TASE) 2.0 is also known as Inter Control Center Protocol (ICCP) or International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 60870-6, but they are more commonly referred to as ICCP. Since different vendors had their own custom and proprietary protocols, there was a need for a common protocol for communication and data exchange between different control centers. Keeping this in mind, ICCP/TASE 2.0 was designed. 

Unlike Modbus, which was designed for serial communication, ICCP has been designed specifically for communication over LAN (Local Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network). ICCP is used in communication between different control centers, power pools, sub-stations, other utilities and non-utility generators.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Standards Organization (ISO) has adopted ICCP in the following international standard forms:

  • TASE.2 Services and Protocol (IEC 60870-6-503)
  • TASE.2 Object Models (IEC 60870-6-802)
  • TASE.2 Application Profile (IEC 60870-6-702).

ICCP major role and functionality in an ICS/SCADA network

ICCP is chiefly used in an ICS/SCADA network for performing following functionalities:

  1. Connection establishment
  2. Reading and accessing information from the end server
  3. Transmission of information from one control center to another
  4. Notifications: Changes, alarms or if any exception condition occurs
  5. Remote device configuration
  6. Control of remote devices and operating programs

ICCP architecture and working

ICCP is a kind of client-server model protocol and widely used for client-server communication between control centers. ICCP allows the exchange of real-time data like measured values, scheduling data, operator messages and energy accounting data. The server contains application data and predefined functions for connection establishment and communication. The client issues a request to the server for reading, accessing and modifying the resource and data present on the server using ICCP protocol.

Client and server may be located in different control centers; in this case, ICCP (Read more...)

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Infosec Resources authored by Nitesh Malviya. Read the original post at: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/infosecResources/~3/GZFjFTaMPbU/