Towards a Layered Architectural View for Security Analysis in SCADA Systems

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems support and control the operation of many critical infrastructures that our society depend on, such as power grids. Since SCADA systems become a target for cyber attacks and the potential impact of a successful attack could lead to disastrous consequences in the physical world, ensuring the security of these systems is of vital importance. A fundamental prerequisite to securing a SCADA system is a clear understanding and a consistent view of its architecture. However, because of the complexity and scale of SCADA systems, this is challenging to acquire. In this paper, we propose a layered architectural view for SCADA systems, which aims at building a common ground among stakeholders and supporting the implementation of security analysis. In order to manage the complexity and scale, we define four interrelated architectural layers, and uses the concept of viewpoints to focus on a subset of the system. We indicate the applicability of our approach in the context of SCADA system security analysis.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Front-End electronics configuration system for CMS

The four LHC experiments at CERN have decided to use a commercial SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) product for the supervision of their DCS (Detector Control System). The selected SCADA, which is therefore used for the CMS DCS, is PVSS II from the company ETM. This SCADA has its own database, which is suitable for storing conventional controls data such as voltages, temperatures and pressures. In addition, calibration data and FE (Front-End) electronics configuration need to be stored. The amount of these data is too large to be stored in the SCADA database [1]. Therefore an external database will be used for managing such data. However, this database should be completely integrated into the SCADA framework, it should be accessible from the SCADA and the SCADA features, e.g. alarming, logging should be benefited from. For prototyping, Oracle 8i was selected as the external database manager. The development of the control system for calibration constants and FE electronics configuration has been done in close collaboration with the CMS tracker group and JCOP (Joint COntrols Project)(1). (1)The four LHC experiments and the CERN IT/CO group has merged their efforts to build the experiments controls systems and set up the JCOP at the end of December, 1997 for this purpose.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, Icaleps'01 conference PSN WEDT00

A SCADA System for Energy Management in Intelligent Buildings

This paper develops an energy management platform for intelligent buildings using a SCADA system (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition). This SCADA system integrates different types of information coming from the several technologies present in modern buildings (control of ventilation, temperature, illumination, etc.). The developed control strategy implements an hierarchical cascade controller where inner loops are performed by local PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller), and the outer loop is managed by a centralized SCADA system, which interacts with the entire local PLC network. In this paper a Predictive Controller is implemented above the centralized SCADA platform. Tests applied to the control of temperature and luminosity in huge-area rooms are presented. The developed Predictive Controller optimizes the satisfaction of user explicit preferences coming from several distributed user-interfaces, subjected to the overall constraints of energy waste minimization. In order to run the Predictive Controller with the SCADA platform a communication channel was developed to allow communication between the SCADA system and the MATLAB application where the Predictive Controller runs

Smart Device Profiling for Smart SCADA

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are computer systems used for monitoring and controlling industrial processes such as power plants and power grid systems, water, gas and oil distribution systems, production systems for food, cars and other products. We propose a new approach for regulating and detecting malicious behaviour of network devices in SCADA systems. Our approach consists of building proles that describe normal communication between pairs of devices in the network. Each prole describes four aspects of network communication: device ngerprint, connectivity pattern, pseudo-protocol pattern and packet content. We validate our approach using network trac from two real-life SCADA installations

Alarm design for SCADA system of assembly cell-200 trainer

Alarm systems play a vital role in maintaining the safe operation in process plant. Moreover, the safety and efficiency of a plant's operation is assured by the usage of a reliable and user friendly alarm system. In this project, the main objective is to introduce an alarm feature inside the SCADA system. Identification of suitable guidelines in designing a good alarm system display is also part of the project's objective. Introduction of alarm feature inside the SCADA system is done by putting the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to Assembly Cell-200 Trainer. Here, the SCADA system is equipped with an alarm system as the mean to monitor and control the trainer. The alarm design adopts the available alarm system guidelines as to figure out and judge the most suitable guidelines to be applied in this project. This exercise proves that general guidelines (e.g., use of an alarm philosophy) are essential in developing this projects. However, detailed guidelines (e.g., colour coding and symbol features) should be used more carefully and consistent to ensure the creation of understandable and recognizable display. From this project, a properly designed alarm system is developed, which provides the operators with enough information to prevent any abnormalities, fault conditions or undesired errors in the plant. This project also summarizes the principal guidelines to consider when designing and developing alarms in SCADA environment

A nearly zero-energy microgrid testbed laboratory: Centralized control strategy based on SCADA system

Currently, despite the use of renewable energy sources (RESs), distribution networks are facing problems, such as complexity and low productivity. Emerging microgrids (MGs) with RESs based on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) are an effective solution to control, manage, and finally deal with these challenges. The development and success of MGs is highly dependent on the use of power electronic interfaces. The use of these interfaces is directly related to the progress of SCADA systems and communication infrastructures. The use of SCADA systems for the control and operation of MGs and active distribution networks promotes productivity and efficiency. This paper presents a real MG case study called the LAMBDA MG testbed laboratory, which has been implemented in the electrical department of the Sapienza University of Rome with a centralized energy management system (CEMS). The real-time results of the SCADA system show that a CEMS can create proper energy balance in a LAMBDA MG testbed and, consequently, minimize the exchange power of the LAMBDA MG and main grid

A log mining approach for process monitoring in SCADA

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems are used for controlling and monitoring industrial processes. We propose a methodology to systematically identify potential process-related threats in SCADA. Process-related threats take place when an attacker gains user access rights and performs actions, which look legitimate, but which are intended to disrupt the SCADA process. To detect such threats, we propose a semi-automated approach of log processing. We conduct experiments on a real-life water treatment facility. A preliminary case study suggests that our approach is effective in detecting anomalous events that might alter the regular process workflow

THE MODEL AND METHOD OF SCADA DIAGNOSTICS AS AN OBJECT WITH PARTIALLY DEFINED PARAMETERS

Modern SCADA are widely spread all over the world to control technological processes in different industries such as power engineering, military, transport, etc. These systems have strict requirements to ensure their fault tolerance and reliability. Therefore, a very important problem is to perform real time self-diagnostics for mission critical SCADA. We propose a diagnostic model based on expert system methodology to solve this issue

The model and method of SCADA diagnostics as an object with partially defined parameters

Modern SCADA are widely spread all over the world to control technological processes in different industries such as power engineering, military, transport, etc. These systems have strict requirements to ensure their fault tolerance and reliability. Therefore, a very important problem is to perform real time self-diagnostics for mission critical SCADA. We propose a diagnostic model based on expert system methodology to solve this issue