Informatics Publishing Limited

Varun M. Rao ¹, Rajesh Kalluri ², G. L. Ganga Prasad ²

Affiliations
1 PES Institute of Technology, Bangalore, IN
2 Centre for development of advanced computing, Bangalore, IN

Abstract

A large section of industrial control where network security is of paramount importance and where glitches can cause massive disruptions in societies has mostly been overlooked and ignored in recent times. Modern critical infrastructure assets (e.g., power plants, refineries and water supply systems) use ICT systems to provide reliable services and offer new features. Many maintenance and management operations at these installations involve the use of SCADA systems are controlled remotely using public networks, mostly over the Internet. While the automation and inter connectivity contribute to increased efficiency and reduced costs, they expose critical installations to new threats. Thus, issues relevant to the securing of this information when it's being transmitted via unsafe channels and unsecured protocols were chosen to be addressed. Various protocols that are used have either no provisions for secure transmission of its information or have outdated security structures. Our focus was on the Modbus protocol because of its wide application and lack of security features in the protocol structure. The objective was to establish a novel approach to the transmission via the Modbus protocol preserving the lower level attributes of transmission and at the same time adding a layer of security without adding significant delay.

Keywords

Modbus, security, SCADA, ICT, encryption, key exchange,CHAP

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Abhiram Amaraneni ¹, Mahendra Lagineni ², Rajesh Kalluri ², R. K. Senthilkumar ², G. L. Ganga Prasad ²

Affiliations
1 Real Time Systems & Smart Grid Group, Center for Development of Advanced Computing, No. 1, Old Madras Road, Byappanahalli, Bengaluru - 560038, IN
2 Real Time Systems & Smart Grid Group, Center for Development of Advanced Computing, No. 1, Old Madras Road, Byappanahalli, Bengaluru - 560038,, IN

Abstract

Cyber security in the SCADA domain has become one of the major concerns of all the stakeholders in the energy sector. The SCADA architecture that the power industry adopts is drawing more attention from a dedicated cyber attacker due to the extent of damage a catastrophe can promise. The usage of open standard protocols for communication among SCADA components that are not designed with security in mind is one of those vulnerable areas for any attacker. The SCADA components in the control region viz., the MTU and the RTU communicate via these insecurely designed open protocols without any authentication. An attacker can target this communication; launch an attack like the manin- the-middle attack resulting in a disastrous situation. An experiment was conducted at CPRI using their Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) simulating a substation to study the impact of an attack. This paper brings out the details of the experiment conducted and the results thus obtained.

Keywords

SCADA, RTU, MTU, RTDS, IEC 60870-5-104/101 protocol& vulnerabilities, cyber-attack. *Real

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