SSL / TLS encryption required for access to Technology Guarding Server and Automation Studio Upgrades

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With March 2024 B&R has closed a cyber security threat. More details about that can be found here: B&R products use insufficient communication encryption (br-automation.com)

The consequence is that old versions of Automation Studio (< V4.6) and Technology Guarding (< V1.4) can not access the servers since they do not use TLS / SSL encryption.

The recommendation is to use newer versions. However this is not possible in every case.
If you are in such a situation you can create registry keys to enable .NET framework using TLS / SSL encryption. How to is described here in detail: How to enable Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 on clients - Configuration Manager | Microsoft Learn
Basically you need to create the following registry keys:

  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v2.0.50727]
    “SystemDefaultTlsVersions” = dword:00000001
    “SchUseStrongCrypto” = dword:00000001
  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319]
    “SystemDefaultTlsVersions” = dword:00000001
    Preformatted text"SchUseStrongCrypto" = dword:00000001
  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v2.0.50727]
    “SystemDefaultTlsVersions” = dword:00000001
    “SchUseStrongCrypto” = dword:00000001
  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\.NETFramework\v4.0.30319]
    “SystemDefaultTlsVersions” = dword:00000001
    “SchUseStrongCrypto” = dword:00000001

Remark: For licensing Automation Studio Target for Simulink | B&R Industrial Automation (br-automation.com) within matlab you need to use the described workaround with registry keys, independent of the installed Technology Guarding version. It seems matlab does use directly the .net framework settings and not B&R Technology Guarding in the background.

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