24,575 research outputs found
Control Behavior Integrity for Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems
Cyber-physical control systems, such as industrial control systems (ICS), are
increasingly targeted by cyberattacks. Such attacks can potentially cause
tremendous damage, affect critical infrastructure or even jeopardize human life
when the system does not behave as intended. Cyberattacks, however, are not new
and decades of security research have developed plenty of solutions to thwart
them. Unfortunately, many of these solutions cannot be easily applied to
safety-critical cyber-physical systems. Further, the attack surface of ICS is
quite different from what can be commonly assumed in classical IT systems.
We present Scadman, a system with the goal to preserve the Control Behavior
Integrity (CBI) of distributed cyber-physical systems. By observing the
system-wide behavior, the correctness of individual controllers in the system
can be verified. This allows Scadman to detect a wide range of attacks against
controllers, like programmable logic controller (PLCs), including malware
attacks, code-reuse and data-only attacks. We implemented and evaluated Scadman
based on a real-world water treatment testbed for research and training on ICS
security. Our results show that we can detect a wide range of
attacks--including attacks that have previously been undetectable by typical
state estimation techniques--while causing no false-positive warning for
nominal threshold values.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
On Using Blockchains for Safety-Critical Systems
Innovation in the world of today is mainly driven by software. Companies need
to continuously rejuvenate their product portfolios with new features to stay
ahead of their competitors. For example, recent trends explore the application
of blockchains to domains other than finance. This paper analyzes the
state-of-the-art for safety-critical systems as found in modern vehicles like
self-driving cars, smart energy systems, and home automation focusing on
specific challenges where key ideas behind blockchains might be applicable.
Next, potential benefits unlocked by applying such ideas are presented and
discussed for the respective usage scenario. Finally, a research agenda is
outlined to summarize remaining challenges for successfully applying
blockchains to safety-critical cyber-physical systems
A survey on cyber security for smart grid communications
A smart grid is a new form of electricity network with high fidelity power-flow control, self-healing, and energy reliability and energy security using digital communications and control technology. To upgrade an existing power grid into a smart grid, it requires significant dependence on intelligent and secure communication infrastructures. It requires security frameworks for distributed communications, pervasive computing and sensing technologies in smart grid. However, as many of the communication technologies currently recommended to use by a smart grid is vulnerable in cyber security, it could lead to unreliable system operations, causing unnecessary expenditure, even consequential disaster to both utilities and consumers. In this paper, we summarize the cyber security requirements and the possible vulnerabilities in smart grid communications and survey the current solutions on cyber security for smart grid communications. © 2012 IEEE
Multi-Layer Cyber-Physical Security and Resilience for Smart Grid
The smart grid is a large-scale complex system that integrates communication
technologies with the physical layer operation of the energy systems. Security
and resilience mechanisms by design are important to provide guarantee
operations for the system. This chapter provides a layered perspective of the
smart grid security and discusses game and decision theory as a tool to model
the interactions among system components and the interaction between attackers
and the system. We discuss game-theoretic applications and challenges in the
design of cross-layer robust and resilient controller, secure network routing
protocol at the data communication and networking layers, and the challenges of
the information security at the management layer of the grid. The chapter will
discuss the future directions of using game-theoretic tools in addressing
multi-layer security issues in the smart grid.Comment: 16 page
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