A testbed to simulate cyber attacks on nuclear power plants

Nuclear power plants are critical infrastructures that must be safe and secure from undesirable intrusions: these intrusions are both physical and cyber. The increasing usage of digital control and computer systems, for supervisory control and data acquisition in the control rooms of new generation nuclear reactors, has introduced several cyber security issues that must be addressed. One of the most significant problems is that this new technology has increased the vulnerability of the nuclear power plant to cyber security threats. Furthermore, this exposed vulnerability is one of the main reasons that the transition to digital control rooms connected to enterprise network (or the internet) has been slow and hesitant. In order to address these issues and ensure that a digital control system is safe and secure from undesirable intrusions, the system must go through extensive tests and validation. These tests will verify that systems are safe and properly functioning. The vulnerabilities of a nuclear power plant can be determined through conducting cyber security exercises, cyber security attacks scenarios, and simulated attacks. All these events can be performed using the control room in the nuclear power plant, but it is a complicated and hampered process because of the complex hardware and software interactions that must be considered. Control rooms are also not ideal places to test various cyber attacks and scenarios because any mishap can lead to detrimental impacts on the nearby surroundings. This research attempts to present our approach to build a comparative testbed that captures the relevant complexity of a nuclear power plant. A testbed is developed and designed to assess the vulnerabilities that are introduced by using public networks for communications. The testbed is also used to simulate different cyber attack scenarios and it will serve to present detection mechanisms that are based on the understanding of the controlled physical system

The role of communication systems in smart grids: Architectures, technical solutions and research challenges

The purpose of this survey is to present a critical overview of smart grid concepts, with a special focus on the role that communication, networking and middleware technologies will have in the transformation of existing electric power systems into smart grids. First of all we elaborate on the key technological, economical and societal drivers for the development of smart grids. By adopting a data-centric perspective we present a conceptual model of communication systems for smart grids, and we identify functional components, technologies, network topologies and communication services that are needed to support smart grid communications. Then, we introduce the fundamental research challenges in this field including communication reliability and timeliness, QoS support, data management services, and autonomic behaviors. Finally, we discuss the main solutions proposed in the literature for each of them, and we identify possible future research directions

Behavioural Observation for Critical Infrastructure Security Support

Critical infrastructures include sectors such as energy resources, finance, food and water distribution, health, manufacturing and government services. In recent years, critical infrastructures have become increasingly dependent on ICT; more interconnected and are often, as a result, linked to the Internet. Consequently, this makes these systems more vulnerable and increases the threat of cyber-attack. In addition, the growing use of wireless networks means that infrastructures can be more susceptible to a direct digital attack than ever before. Traditionally, protecting against environmental threats was the main focus of critical infrastructure preservation. Now, however, with the emergence of cyber-attacks, the focus has changed and infrastructures are facing a different danger with potentially debilitating consequences. Current security techniques are struggling to keep up to date with the sheer volume of innovative and emerging attacks; therefore, considering fresh and adaptive solutions to existing computer security approaches is crucial. The research presented in this thesis, details the use of behavioural observation for critical infrastructure security support. Our observer system monitors an infrastructure’s behaviour and detects abnormalities, which are the result of a cyber-attack taking place. By observing subtle changes in system behaviours, an additional level of support for critical infrastructure security is provided through a plug-in device, which operates autonomously and has no negative impact on data flow. Behaviour is evaluated using mathematical classifications to assess the data and detect changes. The subsequent results achieved during the data classification process were high and successful. Our observer approach was able to accurately classify 98.138 % of the normal and abnormal system behaviours produced by a simulation of a critical infrastructure, using nine data classifiers