scholarly journals A Nonlinear Systems Framework for Cyberattack Prevention for Chemical Process Control Systems †

Mathematics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Durand

Recent cyberattacks against industrial control systems highlight the criticality of preventing future attacks from disrupting plants economically or, more critically, from impacting plant safety. This work develops a nonlinear systems framework for understanding cyberattack-resilience of process and control designs and indicates through an analysis of three control designs how control laws can be inspected for this property. A chemical process example illustrates that control approaches intended for cyberattack prevention which seem intuitive are not cyberattack-resilient unless they meet the requirements of a nonlinear systems description of this property.

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 2598
Author(s):  
Asif Iqbal ◽  
Farhan Mahmood ◽  
Mathias Ekstedt

In today’s connected world, there is a tendency of connectivity even in the sectors which conventionally have been not so connected in the past, such as power systems substations. Substations have seen considerable digitalization of the grid hence, providing much more available insights than before. This has all been possible due to connectivity, digitalization and automation of the power grids. Interestingly, this also means that anybody can access such critical infrastructures from a remote location and gone are the days of physical barriers. The power of connectivity and control makes it a much more challenging task to protect critical industrial control systems. This capability comes at a price, in this case, increasing the risk of potential cyber threats to substations. With all such potential risks, it is important that they can be traced back and attributed to any potential threats to their roots. It is extremely important for a forensic investigation to get credible evidence of any cyber-attack as required by the Daubert standard. Hence, to be able to identify and capture digital artifacts as a result of different attacks, in this paper, the authors have implemented and improvised a forensic testbed by implementing a sandboxing technique in the context of real time-hardware-in-the-loop setup. Newer experiments have been added by emulating the cyber-attacks on WAMPAC applications, and collecting and analyzing captured artifacts. Further, using sandboxing for the first time in such a setup has proven helpful.


2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Priego ◽  
Aintzane Armentia ◽  
Elisabet Estévez ◽  
Marga Marcos

AbstractThe Industrie 4.0 initiative emphasizes the consistent digitalization and linking of all productive units, including the definition of industrial control systems. This work proposes a model-based approach to develop Industrial Process Measurement and Control Systems. It uses modern software technologies but software complexity is wrapped using the notation, syntax and semantics of the field. It is UML modeling tool independent, due to the definition of domain profiles. It is also PLC programming tool independent, as the software architecture is generated following the PLCopen XML standard.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Mohammed Alghassab

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Mackintosh ◽  
Gregory Epiphaniou ◽  
Haider Al-Khateeb ◽  
Keith Burnham ◽  
Prashant Pillai ◽  
...  

Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) are responsible for the automation of different processes and the overall control of systems that include highly sensitive potential targets such as nuclear facilities, energy-distribution, water-supply, and mass-transit systems. Given the increased complexity and rapid evolvement of their threat landscape, and the fact that these systems form part of the Critical National infrastructure (CNI), makes them an emerging domain of conflict, terrorist attacks, and a playground for cyberexploitation. Existing layered-defence approaches are increasingly criticised for their inability to adequately protect against resourceful and persistent adversaries. It is therefore essential that emerging techniques, such as orthogonality, be combined with existing security strategies to leverage defence advantages against adaptive and often asymmetrical attack vectors. The concept of orthogonality is relatively new and unexplored in an ICS environment and consists of having assurance control as well as functional control at each layer. Our work seeks to partially articulate a framework where multiple functional and assurance controls are introduced at each layer of ICS architectural design to further enhance security while maintaining critical real-time transfer of command and control traffic.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document