78 research outputs found

    Assessing and augmenting SCADA cyber security: a survey of techniques

    Get PDF
    SCADA systems monitor and control critical infrastructures of national importance such as power generation and distribution, water supply, transportation networks, and manufacturing facilities. The pervasiveness, miniaturisations and declining costs of internet connectivity have transformed these systems from strictly isolated to highly interconnected networks. The connectivity provides immense benefits such as reliability, scalability and remote connectivity, but at the same time exposes an otherwise isolated and secure system, to global cyber security threats. This inevitable transformation to highly connected systems thus necessitates effective security safeguards to be in place as any compromise or downtime of SCADA systems can have severe economic, safety and security ramifications. One way to ensure vital asset protection is to adopt a viewpoint similar to an attacker to determine weaknesses and loopholes in defences. Such mind sets help to identify and fix potential breaches before their exploitation. This paper surveys tools and techniques to uncover SCADA system vulnerabilities. A comprehensive review of the selected approaches is provided along with their applicability

    CREATING SYNTHETIC ATTACKS WITH EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS FOR INDUSTRIAL-CONTROL-SYSTEM SECURITY TESTING

    Get PDF
    Cybersecurity defenders can use honeypots (decoy systems) to capture and study adversarial activities. An issue with honeypots is obtaining enough data on rare attacks. To improve data collection, we created a tool that uses machine learning to generate plausible artificial attacks on two protocols, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and IEC 60870-5-104 (“IEC 104” for short, an industrial-control-system protocol). It uses evolutionary algorithms to create new variants of two cyberattacks: Log4j exploits (described in CVE-2021-44228 as severely critical) and the Industroyer2 malware (allegedly used in Russian attacks on Ukrainian power grids). Our synthetic attack generator (SAGO) effectively created synthetic attacks at success rates up to 70 and 40 percent for Log4j and IEC 104, respectively. We tested over 5,200 unique variations of Log4j exploits and 256 unique variations of the approach used by Industroyer2. Based on a power-grid honeypot’s response to these attacks, we identified changes to improve interactivity, which should entice intruders to mount more revealing attacks and aid defenders in hardening against new attack variants. This work provides a technique to proactively identify cybersecurity weaknesses in critical infrastructure and Department of Defense assets.Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

    Three Decades of Deception Techniques in Active Cyber Defense -- Retrospect and Outlook

    Full text link
    Deception techniques have been widely seen as a game changer in cyber defense. In this paper, we review representative techniques in honeypots, honeytokens, and moving target defense, spanning from the late 1980s to the year 2021. Techniques from these three domains complement with each other and may be leveraged to build a holistic deception based defense. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has not been a work that provides a systematic retrospect of these three domains all together and investigates their integrated usage for orchestrated deceptions. Our paper aims to fill this gap. By utilizing a tailored cyber kill chain model which can reflect the current threat landscape and a four-layer deception stack, a two-dimensional taxonomy is developed, based on which the deception techniques are classified. The taxonomy literally answers which phases of a cyber attack campaign the techniques can disrupt and which layers of the deception stack they belong to. Cyber defenders may use the taxonomy as a reference to design an organized and comprehensive deception plan, or to prioritize deception efforts for a budget conscious solution. We also discuss two important points for achieving active and resilient cyber defense, namely deception in depth and deception lifecycle, where several notable proposals are illustrated. Finally, some outlooks on future research directions are presented, including dynamic integration of different deception techniques, quantified deception effects and deception operation cost, hardware-supported deception techniques, as well as techniques developed based on better understanding of the human element.Comment: 19 page

    A Framework for the Design of IoT/IIoT/CPS Honeypots

    Get PDF

    Automatic Configuration of Programmable Logic Controller Emulators

    Get PDF
    Programmable logic controllers (PLCs), which are used to control much of the world\u27s critical infrastructures, are highly vulnerable and exposed to the Internet. Many efforts have been undertaken to develop decoys, or honeypots, of these devices in order to characterize, attribute, or prevent attacks against Industrial Control Systems (ICS) networks. Unfortunately, since ICS devices typically are proprietary and unique, one emulation solution for a particular vendor\u27s model will not likely work on other devices. Many previous efforts have manually developed ICS honeypots, but it is a very time intensive process. Thus, a scalable solution is needed in order to automatically configure PLC emulators. The ScriptGenE Framework presented in this thesis leverages several techniques used in reverse engineering protocols in order to automatically configure PLC emulators using network traces. The accuracy, flexibility, and efficiency of the ScriptGenE Framework is tested in three fully automated experiments

    To Deceive or not Deceive: Unveiling The Adoption Determinants Of Defensive Cyber Deception in Norwegian Organizations

    Get PDF
    Due to the prevailing threat landscape in Norway, it is imperative for organizations to safe- guard their infrastructures against cyber threats. One of the technologies that is advan- tageous against these threats is defensive cyber deception, which is an approach in cyber security that aims to be proactive, to interact with the attackers, trick them, deceive them and use this to the defenders advantage. This type of technology can help organizations defend against sophisticated threat actors that are able to avoid more traditional defensive mechanisms, such as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) or Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). In order to aid the adoption of defensive cyber deception in Norway, we asked the question: "What affects the adoption of defensive cyber deception in organizations in Nor- way?". To answer this question, we utilized the Technology, Organization, and Environment (TOE) Framework to identity what factors affect an organization’s adoption of defensive cyber deception. Through our use of the framework, we identified eighteen different factors which affect an organization’s adoption of defensive cyber deception. These factors are the product of the empirical data analysis from eight different semi-structured interview with individuals from six different organizations in Norway. The main theoretical implications of our research is the introduction of a TOE model for defensive cyber deception, focusing specifically on organizations in Norway as well as contributing with a maturity estimate model for defensive cyber deception. For the practical implications of our research, we have identified seven different benefits that defensive cyber deception provides. We are also con- tributing to raising the awareness of defensive cyber deception in Norwegian research and we hope that our TOE model can aid organizations that are considering adopting the tech- nology. We hope that these implications and contributions can act as a spark for both the adoption of defensive cyber deception in organizations as well as the start of a new wave for the cyber security researchers within Norway. Keywords: Cyber Security, Defensive Cyber Deception, TOE Framework, Adoptio

    Teollisuusautomaatiojärjestelmien tunnistus ja luokittelu IP-verkoissa

    Get PDF
    Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are an essential part of the critical infrastructure of society and becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks performed over computer networks. The introduction of remote access connections combined with mistakes in automation system configurations expose ICSs to attacks coming from public Internet. Insufficient IT security policies and weaknesses in security features of automation systems increase the risk of a successful cyber attack considerably. In recent years the amount of observed cyber attacks has been on constant rise, signaling the need of new methods for finding and protecting vulnerable automation systems. So far, search engines for Internet connected devices, such as Shodan, have been a great asset in mapping the scale of the problem. In this theses methods are presented to identify and classify industrial control systems over IP based networking protocols. A great portion of protocols used in automation networks contain specific diagnostic requests for pulling identification information from a device. Port scanning methods combined with more elaborate service scan probes can be used to extract identifying data fields from an automation device. Also, a model for automated finding and reporting of vulnerable ICS devices is presented. A prototype software was created and tested with real ICS devices to demonstrate the viability of the model. The target set was gathered from Finnish devices directly connected to the public Internet. Initial results were promising as devices or systems were identified at 99% success ratio. A specially crafted identification ruleset and detection database was compiled to work with the prototype. However, a more comprehensive detection library of ICS device types is needed before the prototype is ready to be used in different environments. Also, other features which help to further assess the device purpose and system criticality would be some key improvements for the future versions of the prototype.Yhteiskunnan kriittiseen infrastruktuuriin kuuluvat teollisuusautomaatiojärjestelmät ovat yhä enemmissä määrin alttiita tietoverkkojen kautta tapahtuville kyberhyökkäyksille. Etähallintayhteyksien yleistyminen ja virheet järjestelmien konfiguraatioissa mahdollistavat hyökkäykset jopa suoraa Internetistä käsin. Puutteelliset tietoturvakäytännöt ja teollisuusautomaatiojärjestelmien heikot suojaukset lisäävät onnistuneen kyberhyökkäyksen riskiä huomattavasti. Viime vuosina kyberhyökkäysten määrä maailmalla on ollut jatkuvassa kasvussa ja siksi tarve uusille menetelmille haavoittuvaisten järjestelmien löytämiseksi ja suojaamiseksi on olemassa. Internetiin kytkeytyneiden laitteiden hakukoneet, kuten Shodan, ovat olleet suurena apuna ongelman laajuuden kartoittamisessa. Tässä työssä esitellään menetelmiä teollisuusautomaatiojärjestelmien tunnistamiseksi ja luokittelemiseksi käyttäen IP-pohjaisia tietoliikenneprotokollia. Suuri osa automaatioverkoissa käytetyistä protokollista sisältää erityisiä diagnostiikkakutsuja laitteen tunnistetietojen selvittämiseksi. Porttiskannauksella ja tarkemmalla palvelukohtaisella skannauksella laitteesta voidaan saada yksilöivää tunnistetietoa. Työssä esitellään myös malli automaattiselle haavoittuvaisten teollisuusautomaatiojärjestelmien löytämiselle ja raportoimiselle. Mallin tueksi esitellään ohjelmistoprototyyppi, jolla mallin toimivuutta testattiin käyttäen testijoukkona oikeita Suomesta löytyviä, julkiseen Internetiin kytkeytyneitä teollisuusautomaatiolaitteita. Prototyypin alustavat tulokset olivat lupaavia: laitteille tai järjestelmille kyettiin antamaan jokin tunniste 99 % tapauksista käyttäen luokittelussa apuna prototyypille luotua tunnistekirjastoa. Ohjelmiston yleisempi käyttö vaatii kuitenkin kattavamman automaatiolaitteiden tunnistekirjaston luomista sekä prototyypin jatkokehitystä: tehokkaampi tunnistaminen edellyttää automaatiojärjestelmien toimintaympäristön ja kriittisyyden tarkempaa analysointia

    To Deceive or not Deceive: Unveiling The Adoption Determinants Of Defensive Cyber Deception in Norwegian Organizations

    Get PDF
    Due to the prevailing threat landscape in Norway, it is imperative for organizations to safeguard their infrastructures against cyber threats. One of the technologies that is advantageous against these threats is defensive cyber deception, which is an approach in cyber security that aims to be proactive, to interact with the attackers, trick them, deceive them and use this to the defenders advantage. This type of technology can help organizations defend against sophisticated threat actors that are able to avoid more traditional defensive mechanisms, such as Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) or Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). In order to aid the adoption of defensive cyber deception in Norway, we asked the question: "What affects the adoption of defensive cyber deception in organizations in Norway?". To answer this question, we utilized the Technology, Organization, and Environment (TOE) Framework to identity what factors affect an organization's adoption of defensive cyber deception. Through our use of the framework, we identified eighteen different factors which affect an organization's adoption of defensive cyber deception. These factors are the product of the empirical data analysis from eight different semi-structured interview with individuals from six different organizations in Norway. The main theoretical implications of our research is the introduction of a TOE model for defensive cyber deception, focusing specifically on organizations in Norway as well as contributing with a maturity estimate model for defensive cyber deception. For the practical implications of our research, we have identified seven different benefits that defensive cyber deception provides. We are also contributing to raising the awareness of defensive cyber deception in Norwegian research and we hope that our TOE model can aid organizations that are considering adopting the technology. We hope that these implications and contributions can act as a spark for both the adoption of defensive cyber deception in organizations as well as the start of a new wave for the cyber security researchers within Norway. Keywords: Cyber Security, Defensive Cyber Deception, TOE Framework, Adoptio
    corecore