OPC UA Exposure Snapshot: A Year in Review of Internet-Facing Devices
Over the past year, Bitsight TRACE has identified 14,220 unique internet-exposed Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) servers globally. Given OPC UA's critical role as a communication backbone for modern industrial control systems (ICS) across numerous sectors, this level of exposure warrants a closer look. Our analysis reveals that over half (51.74%) of these devices allow unauthenticated access, while 80.26% transmit data in plaintext without encryption or integrity protection.