Patent claim: System for securing electronic data exchange comprising an industrial programmable device 2 implementing industrial process control and a portable programmable device 4 said portable programmable device 4 being adapted to be operated by a user and to exchange electronic data with said industrial programmable device 2 via a first communication protocol each of said industrial programmable device 2 and portable programmable device 4 comprising a communication module enabling said first communication protocol characterized in that itthe industrial programmable device 2 is adapted toread a first user identifier from a user identification device andcheck whether said first user identifier belongs to a list of user identifiers previously stored in a memory of said industrial programmable devicein case of negative checking maintain the communication module of said industrial programmable device disabledthe portable programmable device 4 is adapted toread a second user identifier from a user identification device andcheck whether said second user identifier belongs to a list of user identifiers previously stored in a memory of said portable programmable devicein case of negative checking maintain the communication module of said portable programmable device disabled the industrial programmable device 2 further comprising a module 14 adapted to verify whether said first user identifier is identical to said second user identifier and in case of negative verification to disable the communication module 6 of said industrial programmable device 2 andor to disable the communication module 30 of said portable programmable device 2.

Related passage: Certification component 120 issues and manages certificates utilized to create digital signatures and publicprivate key pairs.Certification component 120 can be utilized in conjunction with a local computer or network device thereby eliminating the need to connect to a wide area network such as the Internet to utilize a third party certificate authority such as VeriSign.Turning briefly to Fig.3 an exemplary certificate component 300 is depicted in accordance with an aspect of the subject invention.A certificate component 300 or simply a certificate can comprise a public key 310 automation device or user name or ID 320 a validity period 330 and a certification authority signature 340 among other things.The public key 310 is utilized to decrypt or alternatively encrypt a message in accordance with a public key cryptographic system.The automation device or user name or ID 320 identifies the automation device or user that is associated with the public key 210.Furthermore according to an aspect of the present invention the ID 320 can also identify a user role or position e.g.administrator.Validity period 330 specifies a period of time in which the certificate 300 is valid.After expiration of the validity period the certificate may be unavailable for use or may be available but unable to guarantee trustworthiness.The validity period 330 is in essence an extra security precaution to ensure data reliability.Certificate authority signature 340 can also be included in the certificate component 300.Certificate authority signature 340 is available to facilitate verification of the authenticity and integrity of the certificate component 300 data.The signature can be verified utilizing a series of steps and components as described in detail in later sections.Certificate signature 340 is often useful during setup when an automation device does not initially recognize the trustworthiness of the certificate.Once initially validated the certificate signature can be assumed to be reliable unless some other incident occurs to challenge that assumption such as expiration of the validity period or revocation of the certificate by the certification component 120 Fig.2.It should be appreciated that the certificate component 300 can be a X.509 digital certificate which is a conventional and widely used standard for digital certificates that has been recommended by theInternational Telecommunications Union ITU.