Industrial communication protocols form the backbone of data exchange in Operational Technology (OT) environments, enabling devices, controllers, and supervisory systems to interact efficiently. Each protocol has been developed with specific operational goals in mind

• Modbus: Simple and widely used in legacy systems, lacks security features.
• DNP3: Used in utilities; supports authentication but often unencrypted.
• Profinet: Common in automation; based on Ethernet standards.
• OPC-UA: Modern protocol with built-in encryption and authentication.