Educational Modules in Industrial Control Systems for Critical Infrastructure Cyber Security

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Foreman ◽  
Matthew Turner ◽  
Karl Perusich
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Cyber Security ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
Industrial Control ◽  
Industrial Control Systems ◽  
Educational Modules

A White Hat Study of a Nation's Publicly Accessible Critical Digital Infrastructure and a Way Forward

2020 ◽  
pp. 1672-1685
Author(s):  
Timo Kiravuo ◽  
Seppo Tiilikainen ◽  
Mikko Särelä ◽  
Jukka Manner
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Address Space ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Industrial Control ◽  
Industrial Control Systems ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Internet Address ◽  
Nation States

The developed society depends on many critical infrastructure processes, such as power generation, water treatment, many types of manufacturing, and smart buildings. These processes need control and the automation industry has embraced the Internet to connect all these controls. However, the controlling devices thus opened to the world do not always have adequate safeguards to withstand malicious users. Many automation systems have default passwords or known and unknown backdoors. Also, often those systems are not updated to close security weaknesses found after original installation. The authors argue that while the industry is familiar with the notion of safety of equipment and processes, it has not focused enough on IT security. Several years ago the Shodan search engine showed how easy it is to find these control devices on the Internet. The authors followed this research line further by targeting one nation's IP address space with Shodan and found thousands of control systems, many of which represent models and versions with known vulnerabilities. Their first contribution is presenting these findings and analyzing their significance. Their study started in 2012 and the most recent results are from the end of 2015. To gain further knowledge, they have built a prototype scanner capable of finding industrial control systems. This lets the authors evaluate the possibility of performing routine scans to gauge the vulnerability of a nation. Their second contribution is to present a template for a national Internet scanning program. The authors discuss the technology, performance, and legality of such a program. Based on their findings and analysis they argue that nations should continuously monitor their own Internet address space for vulnerabilities. The authors' findings indicate that the current level of vulnerabilities is significant and unacceptable. Scanning a nation's critical infrastructure can be done in minutes, allowing them to keep a tight control of vulnerabilities. Yet, in addition, the authors need to extend current legislation and the rights of government officials to bring more security in national critical infrastructures; this discussion is their third contribution. The cyber-space has become a playing field for criminals, terrorists and nation states, all of which may have a motive to disrupt the daily life of a nation, and currently causing such disruptions is too easy.

scholarly journals Industrial control systems: The biggest cyber threat

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 044-046
Author(s):  
Beretas Christos P
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Cyber Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Security Requirements ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
Western World ◽  
Control Analysis ◽  
Industrial Control ◽  
Industrial Control Systems ◽  
Cyber Threats

Industrial control systems (ICS) are critical, as in these systems, cyber threats have the potential to affect, disorganize, change their mode of operation, act as an information extraction vehicle, and ultimately turn against itself. Creating risks to the system itself, infrastructure, downtime, leakage of sensitive data, and even loss of human life. Industrial control systems (ICS) are vital to the operation of all the modern automated infrastructure in the western world, such as power plant and power stations. Industrial control systems (ICS) differ from the traditional information systems and infrastructures of organizations and companies, a standard cyber security strategy cannot be implemented but part of it adapting to the real facts and needs of each country, legislation and infrastructure. These systems require continuous operation, reliability and rapid recovery when attacked electronically with automated control, isolation and attack management processes. Incorrect settings and lack of strategic planning can lead to unprotected operation of critical installations, as they do not meet the cyber security requirements. Industrial control systems (ICS) require special protection in their networks, as they should be considered vulnerable in all their areas, they need protection from cyber attacks against ICS, SCADA servers, workstations, PLC automations, etc. Security policies to be implemented should provide protection against cyber threats, and systems recovery without affecting the operation and reliability of operating processes. Security policies such as security assessment, smart reporting, vulnerability and threat simulation, integrity control analysis, apply security policy to shared systems, intrusion detection and prevention, and finally firewall with integrated antivirus and sandbox services should be considered essential entities.

scholarly journals Continents to Islands: The effect of widespread interconnectivity on critical infrastructure and legacy systems

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 77-83
Author(s):  
Kayne Naughton
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
Legacy Systems ◽  
Industrial Control ◽  
Industrial Control Systems ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The World

Interconnected devices and the true ‘internet’ cause security challenges to organisations with critical legacy systems. This article discusses a number of legacy issues around Industrial Control Systems and ‘untouchable’ legacy devices and proposes a number of easy and effective mitigations to the practices that expose them to the world.

scholarly journals Analyzing the Impact of Cybersecurity on Monitoring and Control Systems in the Energy Sector

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Mohammed Alghassab
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Control Systems ◽  
Cyber Security ◽  
Energy Sector ◽  
Industrial Control System ◽  
Monitoring And Control ◽  
Industrial Control ◽  
Industrial Control Systems ◽  
Monitoring And Control Systems ◽  
And Control

Monitoring and control systems in the energy sector are specialized information structures that are not governed by the same information technology standards as the rest of the world’s information systems. Such industrial control systems are also used to handle important infrastructures, including smart grids, oil and gas facilities, nuclear power plants, water management systems, and so on. Industry equipment is handled by systems connected to the internet, either via wireless or cable connectivity, in the present digital age. Further, the system must work without fail, with the system’s availability rate being of paramount importance. Furthermore, to certify that the system is not subject to a cyber-attack, the entire system must be safeguarded against cyber security vulnerabilities, threats, and hazards. In addition, the article looks at and evaluates cyber security evaluations for industrial control systems, as well as their possible impact on the accessibility of industrial control system operations in the energy sector. This research work discovers that the hesitant fuzzy-based method of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is an operational procedure for estimating industrial control system cyber security assessments by understanding the numerous characteristics and their impacts on cyber security industrial control systems. The author evaluated the outputs of six distinct projects to determine the quality of the outcomes and their sensitivity. According to the results of the robustness analysis, alternative 1 shows the utmost effective cybersecurity project for the industrial control system. This research work will be a conclusive reference for highly secure and managed monitoring and control systems.

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