An off-road mobile work machine data capture system includes a robustly-identifiable sensor module having a task sensor that provides a task sensor signal indicative of a task. The system also includes a processor coupled to the robustly-identifiable sensor module that is configured to issue a challenge to the robustly-identifiable sensor module and compare a response from the robustly-identifiable sensor module to an expected response to authenticate the robustly-identifiable sensor module. The processor is further configured to generate an indication of authentication failure if the response from the robustly-identifiable sensor module does not match the expected response.