Assessing and augmenting SCADA cyber security: a survey of techniques

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

A Stochastic Model of Plausibility in Live-Virtual-Constructive Environments

Distributed live-virtual-constructive simulation promises a number of benefits for the test and evaluation community, including reduced costs, access to simulations of limited availability assets, the ability to conduct large-scale multi-service test events, and recapitalization of existing simulation investments. However, geographically distributed systems are subject to fundamental state consistency limitations that make assessing the data quality of live-virtual-constructive experiments difficult. This research presents a data quality model based on the notion of plausible interaction outcomes. This model explicitly accounts for the lack of absolute state consistency in distributed real-time systems and offers system designers a means of estimating data quality and fitness for purpose. Experiments with World of Warcraft player trace data validate the plausibility model and exceedance probability estimates. Additional experiments with synthetic data illustrate the model\u27s use in ensuring fitness for purpose of live-virtual-constructive simulations and estimating the quality of data obtained from live-virtual-constructive experiments

A system-of systems approach to the development of flexible, cost-effective training environments

In today's aircrew training context, although there is an abundance of training systems that can enhance training and reduce costs, the challenge for the military training organizations to select the most cost-effective training systems to address their immediate and future needs is unresolved. The urgency of this dilemma is exacerbated by shrinking defense budgets. This paper shows how the systems engineering perspective can help the decision-making process for selecting the training media equipment to construct a cost-effective training media environment. A multidisciplinary approach and systems engineering techniques were used to develop a theoretical model of the Mission Training Environment arrangement. Implications of the approach, such as that the training environment can be viewed as a system of systems and that the choice is based on combination of equipment, will be discussed

Message Latency Characterization of a Distributed Live, Virtual, Constructive Simulation Environment

A distributed test environment incorporating Live, Virtual, Constructive, (LVC) concepts was developed to execute standalone and integrated simulations and flight-tests that support unmanned aircraft research for NASAs Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project. The LVC components form the core infrastructure that supports simulation of UAS operations by integrating live and virtual aircraft in a realistic air traffic environment. This LVC infrastructure enables efficient testing by leveraging the use of existing distributed assets. The LVC concepts used for the UAS in the NAS project include live aircraft, flight simulators, and virtual air traffic control assets operating at facilities distributed across multiple NASA Centers. With a distributed network, however, there is a concern that message latency could impact the realism of a simulation and its data. The latencies associated with sending data among these distributed facilities were, therefore, measured to ensure that they fall within acceptable parameters. Several live and virtual test assets were integrated into the LVC infrastructure including NASA Armstrongs Ikhana MQ-9 unmanned aircraft, NASA Glenns S3-B manned aircraft, and the B747 flight simulator at NASA Ames. Average latencies from 100 to 150 milliseconds were observed between the LVC System running at NASA Ames and each of the participating NASA Centers under a light-to-moderate (fifty aircraft) traffic sample