Security Issue of WirelessHART Based SCADA Systems

International audienceThe security of Supervisory Control and Data Acquistition systems (SCADA) has become these last years, a major worldwide concern. Indeed, several incidents and cyber-attacks stressed the emergency to make more efforts to secure these systems which manage important economical infrastructures. The increasing use of wireless sensors also brings their security vulnerabilities. Therefore, several communication protocols were developed to meet real time and security requirements needed by this kind of systems. WirelessHART is the first approved international standard for industrial wireless devices. It implements several mechanisms to ensure hop-by-hop and end-to-end security. However, despite these mechanisms, it remains possible for an attacker to conduct an attack against such wireless networks. In this paper, we give the first description of a Sybil attack specially tailored to target WirelessHART based SCADA systems. This attack can lead to harmful consequences such as disturbing the infrastructure functioning, interrupting it or more again causing its destruction (overheating of a nuclear reactor)

Total synthesis and medicinal chemistry of antibacterial cyclic peptides

. As Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems control severalcritical infrastructures, they have connected to the internet. Consequently,SCADA systems face different sophisticated types of cyber adversaries. Thispaper suggests a Probability Risk Identification based Intrusion DetectionSystem (PRI-IDS) technique based on analysing network traffic of Modbus TCP/IPfor identifying replay attacks. It is acknowledged that Modbus TCP is usuallyvulnerable due to its unauthenticated and unencrypted nature. Our technique isevaluated using a simulation environment by configuring a testbed, which is acus- tom SCADA network that is cheap, accurate and scalable. The testbed isexploited when testing the IDS by sending individual packets from an attackerlocated on the same LAN as the Modbus master and slave. The experimentalresults demonstrated that the proposed technique can effectively andefficiently recognise replay attacks

Smart grid communication and networking technologies: recent developments and future challenges

The smart grid is ostensibly the next generation power grid in which electrical energy distribution and management is efficiently performed by exploiting information communication technologies such as pervasive computing, in the control and decision-making processes. The smart grid is characterised by such functionality as being able to adapt to load and demand changes, intelligently manage bidirectional data flow and crucially enhance system reliability, robustness, security and sustainability. Communication networks play a crucial role in facilitating these features and are an integral component in any smart grid management system. In this chapter, the role of the communications network in smart grid operation is described together with its main functionalities. In particular, the challenges and opportunities for integrating existing and future wireless and mobile networks into the smart grid will be analysed, while the chapter concludes by identifying some future research directions for smart grid technologies