43 research outputs found

    The Use of System in the Loop, Hardware in the Loop, and Co-modeling of Cyber-Physical Systems in Developing and Evaluating New Smart Grid Solutions

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    This paper deals with two issues: development of some advanced smart grid applications, and implementation of advanced testbeds to evaluate these applications. In each of the development cases, the role of the testbeds is explained and evaluation results are presented. The applications cover the synchrophasor systems, interfacing of microgrids to the main grid, and cybersecurity solutions. The paper hypothesizes that the use of the advanced testbeds is beneficial for the development process since the solution product-to-market cycle may be shortened due to early real-life demonstrations. In addition, solution users’ feedback to the testbed demonstration can be incorporated at an early stage when making the changes is not as costly as doing it at more mature development stages

    Cyber-Physical Production Testbed: Literature Review and Concept Development

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    Many researchers use virtual and simulation-based testbed technology for research in production and maintenance optimization. Although, the virtual environment produces good results, it cannot imitate the unexpected changes that occur in actual production. There are very few physical testbeds emulating actual production environment. The aim of this paper is to present a concept of a cyber-physical production testbed based on review of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) testbeds in research. The testbed consists of a semi-automatic production line equipped with system monitoring tools, data analysis capabilities and commercial software. This testbed will be used for demonstration of data acquisition for production and maintenance prioritization. Additionally, the testbed will be used for research in IoT platforms for production optimization

    Assessing and augmenting SCADA cyber security: a survey of techniques

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    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

    Moving target defense for securing smart grid communications: Architectural design, implementation and evaluation

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    Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) communications are often subjected to various kinds of sophisticated cyber-attacks which can have a serious impact on the Critical Infrastructure such as the power grid. Most of the time, the success of the attack is based on the static characteristics of the system, thereby enabling an easier profiling of the target system(s) by the adversary and consequently exploiting their limited resources. In this thesis, a novel approach to mitigate such static vulnerabilities is proposed by implementing a Moving Target Defense (MTD) strategy in a power grid SCADA environment, which leverages the existing communication network with an end-to-end IP Hopping technique among the trusted peer devices. This offers a proactive L3 layer network defense, minimizing IP-specific threats and thwarting worm propagation, APTs, etc., which utilize the cyber kill chain for attacking the system through the SCADA network. The main contribution of this thesis is to show how MTD concepts provide proactive defense against targeted cyber-attacks, and a dynamic attack surface to adversaries without compromising the availability of a SCADA system. Specifically, the thesis presents a brief overview of the different type of MTD designs, the proposed MTD architecture and its implementation with IP hopping technique over a Control Center–Substation network link along with a 3-way handshake protocol for synchronization on the Iowa State’s Power Cyber testbed. The thesis further investigates the delay and throughput characteristics of the entire system with and without the MTD to choose the best hopping rate for the given link. It also includes additional contributions for making the testbed scenarios more realistic to real world scenarios with multi-hop, multi-path WAN. Using that and studying a specific attack model, the thesis analyses the best ranges of IP address for different hopping rate and different number of interfaces. Finally, the thesis describes two case studies to explore and identify potential weaknesses of the proposed mechanism, and also experimentally validate the proposed mitigation alterations to resolve the discovered vulnerabilities. As part of future work, we plan to extend this work by optimizing the MTD algorithm to be more resilient by incorporating other techniques like network port mutation to further increase the attack complexity and cost

    KYPO4INDUSTRY: A Testbed for Teaching Cybersecurity of Industrial Control Systems

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    There are different requirements on cybersecurity of industrial control systems and information technology systems. This fact exacerbates the global issue of hiring cybersecurity employees with relevant skills. In this paper, we present KYPO4INDUSTRY training facility and a course syllabus for beginner and intermediate computer science students to learn cybersecurity in a simulated industrial environment. The training facility is built using open-source hardware and software and provides reconfigurable modules of industrial control systems. The course uses a flipped classroom format with hands-on projects: the students create educational games that replicate real cyber attacks. Throughout the semester, they learn to understand the risks and gain capabilities to respond to cyber attacks that target industrial control systems. Our described experience from the design of the testbed and its usage can help any educator interested in teaching cybersecurity of cyber-physical systems

    EVA: a hybrid cyber range

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    Over the recent years, cyber attacks have increased constantly. Attacks targeting sensors networks, or exploiting the growing number of networked devices, are becoming even more frequent. This has led to the need to find a way to train the teams responsible for defending computer systems in order to make them able to respond to any threats quickly. The fact that it is impossible to carry out training operations directly on corporate networks or critical infrastructure has led to the birth of Cyber Ranges, virtual or hybrid systems that allow training in safe and isolated environments. In this paper we present a model for the implementation of a Hybrid Cyber-Range (HCR), based on the model of a real Water Supply System WSS). The HCR shall combine the dynamism and flexibility of virtualised Cyber-Ranges (CR) and the realism of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)

    Towards Establishing Principles for Designing Cybersecurity Simulations of Cyber-Physical Artefacts in Real-Time Simulation

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    Our modern world is dependent on cyber-physical artefacts (e.g., smart grids, cars, mobile phones). Those artefacts are being attacked by cyber-criminals entailing substantial harm to individuals, organizations, and governments. Those artefacts need to be designed properly to prevent and recover from inevitable cyberattacks. We offer a solution based on a RealTime Simulator (RTS). Our solution is meta-principles for using RTS when designing simulations in Cyber-Physical artefacts. Our solution considers both social and technical layers of cyber-physical artefacts.©2021 the Authors.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed
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