The OPC UA specification describes Audit Events that are to be generated and the information that these Audit Events include as a minimum, however, the specification does not describe how these Audit Events are handled once they are generated. Audit Events can be subscribed to by multiple Audit tracking systems or logging systems. The OPC UA specification does not describe these systems. It is assumed that any number of vendor provided systems could provide this functionality. As a best practice whatever system is used to store and manage, Audit Events should ensure the following:

  • That Audit Events are not tampered with once they are received.
  • The Subscription for Audit Events should be via a Secure Channel to ensure they are not tampered with while in transition.
  • For Clients that log audit events; it is recommended that the logged audit events be persisted in such a manner that the audit events can be authenticated and linked to the original transaction.

An Audit event management system could have additional requirements based on the site CSMS.