Team for Research in
Ubiquitous Secure Technology

Citation
Alvaro Cardenas, Saurabh Amin, Zong-Syun Lin, Chi-Yen Huang, Shankar Sastry. "Attacks against process control systems: risk assessment, detection, and response". Proceedings of the 6th ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS11), 2011.

Abstract
In the last years there has been an increasing interest in the security of process control and SCADA systems. Furthermore, recent computer attacks such as the Stuxnet worm, have shown there are parties with the motivation and resources to effectively attack control systems. While previous work has proposed new security mechanisms for control systems, few of them have explored new and fundamentally different research problems for securing control systems when compared to securing traditional information technology (IT) systems. In particular, the sophistication of new malware attacking control systems--malware including zero-days attacks, rootkits created for control systems, and software signed by trusted certificate authorities--has shown that it is very difficult to prevent and detect these attacks based solely on IT system information. In this paper we show how, by incorporating knowledge of the physical system under control, we are able to detect computer attacks that change the behavior of the targeted control system. By using knowledge of the physical system we are able to focus on the final objective of the attack, and not on the particular mechanisms of how vulnerabilities are exploited, and how the attack is hidden. We analyze the security and safety of our mechanisms by exploring the effects of stealthy attacks, and by ensuring that automatic attack-response mechanisms will not drive the system to an unsafe state. A secondary goal of this paper is to initiate the discussion between control and security practitioners--two areas that have had little interaction in the past. We believe that control engineers can leverage security engineering to design--based on a combination of their best practices--control algorithms that go beyond safety and fault tolerance, and include considerations to survive targeted attacks.

Electronic downloads

• http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1966913.1966959

• HTML

  Alvaro Cardenas, Saurabh Amin, Zong-Syun Lin, Chi-Yen Huang,
  Shankar Sastry. <a
  href="http://www.truststc.org/pubs/859.html"
  >Attacks against process control systems: risk
  assessment, detection, and response</a>, Proceedings
  of the 6th ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and
  Communications Security  (ASIACCS11), 2011.

• Plain text

  Alvaro Cardenas, Saurabh Amin, Zong-Syun Lin, Chi-Yen Huang,
  Shankar Sastry. "Attacks against process control
  systems: risk assessment, detection, and response".
  Proceedings of the 6th ACM Symposium on Information,
  Computer and Communications Security  (ASIACCS11), 2011.

• BibTeX

  @inproceedings{CardenasAminLinHuangSastry11_AttacksAgainstProcessControlSystemsRiskAssessmentDetection,
      author = {Alvaro Cardenas and Saurabh Amin and Zong-Syun Lin
                and Chi-Yen Huang and Shankar Sastry},
      title = {Attacks against process control systems: risk
                assessment, detection, and response},
      booktitle = {Proceedings of the 6th ACM Symposium on
                Information, Computer and Communications Security 
                (ASIACCS11)},
      year = {2011},
      abstract = {In the last years there has been an increasing
                interest in the security of process control and
                SCADA systems. Furthermore, recent computer
                attacks such as the Stuxnet worm, have shown there
                are parties with the motivation and resources to
                effectively attack control systems. While previous
                work has proposed new security mechanisms for
                control systems, few of them have explored new and
                fundamentally different research problems for
                securing control systems when compared to securing
                traditional information technology (IT) systems.
                In particular, the sophistication of new malware
                attacking control systems--malware including
                zero-days attacks, rootkits created for control
                systems, and software signed by trusted
                certificate authorities--has shown that it is very
                difficult to prevent and detect these attacks
                based solely on IT system information. In this
                paper we show how, by incorporating knowledge of
                the physical system under control, we are able to
                detect computer attacks that change the behavior
                of the targeted control system. By using knowledge
                of the physical system we are able to focus on the
                final objective of the attack, and not on the
                particular mechanisms of how vulnerabilities are
                exploited, and how the attack is hidden. We
                analyze the security and safety of our mechanisms
                by exploring the effects of stealthy attacks, and
                by ensuring that automatic attack-response
                mechanisms will not drive the system to an unsafe
                state. A secondary goal of this paper is to
                initiate the discussion between control and
                security practitioners--two areas that have had
                little interaction in the past. We believe that
                control engineers can leverage security
                engineering to design--based on a combination of
                their best practices--control algorithms that go
                beyond safety and fault tolerance, and include
                considerations to survive targeted attacks.},
      URL = {http://www.truststc.org/pubs/859.html}
  }
  

Posted by Mary Stewart on 4 Apr 2012.
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