Research of integrity and authentication in OPC UA communication using Whirlpool hash function

Abstract

Currently, the demand for information security of industrial control systems is becoming more and more urgent, but the security model proposed by OPC UA cannot meet the practical requirements of industrial control systems. For this reason, this paper proposes a new security communication model to provide integrity and authentication in OPC UA. This model uses the Whirlpool hash function to check integrity and generates digital signature along with RSA in message transmission. Compared to SHA-1, Whirlpool has a higher calculation speed and lower collision rate. Through this model, terminals in the upper layer can communicate with field devices via a channel with high security and efficiency.