A series terminal for an automation system, having an insulating housing, which has an electrical contact on at least one side of the housing with which the series terminal can be connected with a data bus of an automation system. The series terminal comprises an integrated electronic processing unit which is connected to the at least one contact device and is designed for transmitting and/or receiving data via the data bus. In this case, the integrated electronic processing unit is set up to query a configuration of the automation system and, based on the configuration, to generate an individual cryptographic key for the automation system in conjunction with a secret cryptographic key stored in the series terminal.