SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING ACCESS TO A PLANT NETWORK

摘要

A system for centrally controlling access by computers in a corporate network to a plant network that runs plant applications. The system includes an access control computer in communication with the corporate network and includes a memory, a processor coupled to the memory and a multi-user application stored in the memory and executable by the processor. The multi-user application communicates with a plurality of computers in the corporate network concurrently and communicates with at least one plant application running in the plant network to retrieve data from and pass data to the plant application on behalf of the plurality of computers in the corporate network concurrently. Since all communication from the plurality of computers is tunneled through the access control computer, the likelihood of any virus or worm spreading into the plant network is minimized.