44 Scadapack 100 with no idea of password

[cire3621]

Recently a customer we work for had a previous contractor in the oil and gas industry working for them that told them they are too busy to work for them anymore. Problem is...they password protected all the Scadapack 100's their is not much to the programming and i can tell by what they are controlling and how they are wired in. The company refuses to hand over the programs or the password...I am sure the programs are all the same for each site...I got into the master but all of these sites are slaves to the master. We can get the master program but it is undocumented and I have no idea which modbuss addressing belongs to which location from the slave radios. Anyone have a solution to this? I am going to do some under the rug stuff to try and get the password, but I need to know which modbuss addresses in the master PLC that is polling which slaves and what modbuss address belong to them...any suggestions?

 

[Mark-]

Hi,

Sure, the owner of the hardware reads the contract/purchase order to determine, in their opinion, if they have the rights to the programs in the Scadapacks and if so get the lawyers involved.

Asking you or you volunteering to potential violate an earlier agreement could cost your customer tons of money.

Maybe the company is refusing because they know they did not confer the rights and are waiting for someone to breach the agreement to collect for retirement.

Just a thought.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Mark is right - this is not a technical problem but rather a commercial/legal one. I suggest that the original contracts be inspected to see who owns the code. If this was custom programming - work for hire - then your company probably has rights to all of that info.

 

[cire3621]

We are Electrical/Automation Contractors too...but yes they were hired by an Oil Company and were paid to install the equipment and program i...they are about 100 miles away from the locations and said they don't have time to service any of it anymore...so we were going to take over it since we are closer...but the previous company refuses to give the Oil Company or us the programs or the password to the programs...we only need it in case they lose a plc we can replace the plc and reprogram it. Because the oil company does not want us to replace and pay for reprogramming 44 new plc's. When the ones that are out their already work.

 

[Steve Bailey]

Personally I would not touch it until the owner and the holder of the passwords resolve their differences.

The password holder will not send anyone to the site to work on the system. At the same time they will not give up the passwords so someone else can service it. That suggests to me that there is something else going on between the two that you're not privy to. You don't want to be caught in the middle when the lawyers get involved.