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Flexible, cloud-backed Modbus/TCP log collection with NXLog and Python

Modbus is a simple and flexible protocol used by a wide variety of industrial and automation equipment. Its simplicity has made it attractive for many manufacturers, but it also poses a number of challenges in terms of security and traffic analysis. In this post, we’ll show you how to use NXLog to capture, process, and extract useful security information from Modbus traffic. What makes Modbus traffic analysis challenging? Modbus is a low-level protocol that effectively uses only two data types: bits (in the form of coils), and 16-bit words (in the form of registers), which are also the only form of data that can be natively addressed with most devices.