Applying Lessons from Cyber Attacks on Ukrainian Infrastructures to Secure Gateways onto the Industrial Internet of Things

Previous generations of safety-related industrial control systems were ‘air gapped’. In other words, process control components including Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) and smart sensor/actuators were disconnected and isolated from local or wide area networks. This provided a degree of protection; attackers needed physical access to compromise control systems components. Over time this ‘air gap’ has gradually been eroded. Switches and gateways have subsequently interfaced industrial protocols, including Profibus and Modbus, so that data can be drawn from safety-related Operational Technology into enterprise information systems using TCP/IP. Senior management uses these links to monitor production processes and inform strategic planning. The Industrial Internet of Things represents another step in this evolution – enabling the coordination of physically distributed resources from a centralized location. The growing range and sophistication of these interconnections create additional security concerns for the operation and management of safety-critical systems. This paper uses lessons learned from recent attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructures to guide a forensic analysis of an IIoT switch. The intention is to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities that would enable similar attacks to be replicated across Europe and North America

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 survey on online monitoring approaches of computer-based systems

This report surveys forms of online data collection that are in current use (as well as being the subject of research to adapt them to changing technology and demands), and can be used as inputs to assessment of dependability and resilience, although they are not primarily meant for this use

Cyber Security and Security Frameworks for Cloud and IoT Architectures

Das Cloud Computing hat die Art und Weise unserer Kommunikation in den letzten Jahren rapide verändert. Es ermöglicht die Bereitstellung unterschiedlicher Dienste über das Internet. Inzwischen wurden sowohl für Unternehmen, als auch für den privaten Sektor verschiedene Anwendungen des Cloud Computing entwickelt. Dabei bringt jede Anwendung zahlreiche Vorteile mit sich, allerdings werden auch neue Herausforderungen an die IT-Sicherheit gestellt. In dieser Dissertation werden besonders wichtige Anwendungen des Cloud Computing auf die aktuellen Herausforderungen für die IT-Sicherheit untersucht. 1. Die Container Virtualisierung ermöglicht die Trennung der eigentlichen Anwendung von der IT-Infrastruktur. Dadurch kann ein vorkonfiguriertes Betriebssystem-Image zusammen mit einer Anwendung in einem Container kombiniert und in einer Testumgebung evaluiert werden. Dieses Prinzip hat vor allem die Software-Entwicklung in Unternehmen grundlegend verändert. Container können verwendet werden, um software in einer isolierten Umgebung zu testen, ohne den operativen Betrieb zu stören. Weiterhin ist es möglich, verschiedene Container-Instanzen über mehrere Hosts hinweg zu verwalten. In dem Fall spricht man von einer Orchestrierung. Da Container sensible unternehmensinterne Daten beinhalten, müssen Unternehmen ihr IT-Sicherheitskonzept für den Einsatz von Container Virtualisierungen überarbeiten. Dies stellt eine große Herausforderung dar, da es derzeit wenig Erfahrung mit der Absicherung von (orchestrierten) Container Virtualisierungen gibt. 2. Da Container Dienste über das Internet bereitstellen, sind Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter, die diese Dienste für ihre Arbeit benötigen, an keinen festen Arbeitsplatz gebunden. Dadurch werden wiederum Konzepte wie das home

Analysis of intrusion prevention methods

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Computer Engineering, Izmir, 2004Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 105-108)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishviii, 108 leavesToday, the pace of the technological development and improvements has compelled the development of new and more complex applications. The obligatory of application development in a short time to rapidly changing requirements causes skipping of some stages, mostly the testing stage, in the software development cycle thus, leads to the production of applications with defects. These defects are, later, discovered by intruders to be used to penetrate into computer systems. Current security technologies, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, honeypots, network-based antivirus systems, are insufficient to protect systems against those, continuously increasing and rapid-spreading attacks. Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is a new technology developed to block today.s application-specific, data-driven attacks that spread in the speed of communication. IPS is the evolved and integrated state of the existing technologies; it is not a new approach to network security. In this thesis, IPS products of various computer security appliance developer companies have been analyzed in details. At the end of these analyses, the requirements of network-based IPSs have been identified and an architecture that fits those requirements has been proposed. Also, a sample network-based IPS has been developed by modifying the open source application Snort

Recommendations for Applying Security-Centric Technology Utilizing a Layered Approach in the Era of Ubiquitous Computing: (A Guide for the Small Business Enterprise).

The purpose of this work is to advise and assist Small Business in applying security centric technology to better manage and secure their information assets. Computer Crimes and Incursions are growing exponentially, in complexity, and in their sinister application. In the face of this onslaught small businesses, indeed organizations everywhere, need to accept this as a business constant or reality, identify the threats, acknowledge the vulnerabilities, and make plans to meet these challenges