IJSRED-V2I2P15

International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development-– Volume 2 Issue 1, Mar-Apr 2019
Available at www.ijsred.com
ISSN : 2581-7175 ©IJSRED: All Rights are Reserved Page 121
Protection Trends in Scada Cyber Threats
Anusha H S1
, Amulya C T2
, Annapoorneshwari M R3
, Monisha Krishna D S4
,
Mohammed Elahi5
1, 2, 3, &4
Students, Dept of ECE, Ghousia College of Engineering, Ramanagaram, Karnataka
5
Asst. Professor, Dept. of ECE, Ghousia College of Engineering, Ramanagaram, Karnataka
Abstract:
The answer to the existing threat issues in SCADA is that these types of threats are becoming more likely,
as current SCADA systems and networks increasingly utilize commercially off-the-shelf (COTS) software, connect
to the enterprise layer and move toward IP connectivity. These recent changes have contributed to higher threat
levels and increased vulnerability. A few short years ago, the chances of someone finding these vulnerabilities and
exploiting them were very slim. This was due to the fact that process control systems and SCADA networks were
unheard of by the general population and systems were based on specialized platforms that were segregated from the
enterprise layer. In recent years, industrial systems have begun to take a front seat in the spot light, due to the focus
by the Department of Homeland Security on national critical infrastructure and some unfortunate media coverage.
Despite current efforts, there is a high probability that something bad is eventually going to happen. In addition, the
number of "SCADA hacking" presentations is increasing at security and "hacker" conventions, with the number of
vulnerabilities discovered within these systems increasing. Bottom line, our little corner of industry is no longer
isolated and the word is now out. While cyber security is being given the lion's share of attention, with "hackers"
already attracting premature blame from a few recently publicized incidents, the widespread disregard for physical
and operational security within many organizations has become a huge concern. Many companies are heavily
focused on shoring up their cyber security, with little or no regard for physical security.
Index Term: Commercially off the shelf (COTS), SCADA hacking
I. INTRODUCTION
SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition.
It generally refers to an industrial control system: a computer
system monitoring and controlling a process. The process can
be industrial, infrastructure or facility based as described
below:
Industrial processes include those of manufacturing,
production, power generation, fabrication, and refining,
and may run in continuous, batch, repetitive, or discrete
modes.
Infrastructure processes may be public or private, and
include water treatment and distribution, wastewater
collection and treatment, oil and gas pipelines, electrical
power transmission and distribution, and large
communication systems.
Facility processes occur both in public facilities and
private ones, including buildings, airports, ships, and space
stations. They monitor and control HVAC, access, and
energy consumption.
SCADA systems are used to control and monitor physical
processes, examples of which are transmission of electricity,
transportation of gas and oil in pipelines, water distribution,
traffic lights, and other systems used as the basis of modern
society. The security of these SCADA systems is important
because compromise or destruction of these systems would
impact multiple areas of society far removed from the original
RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS

compromise. For example, a blackout caused by a
compromised electrical SCADA system would cause financial
losses to all the customers that received electricity from that
source. How security will affect legacy SCADA and new
deployments remains to be seen.
Many vendors of SCADA and control products have begun to
address these risks by developing lines of specialized industrial
firewall and VPN solutions for TCP/IP-based SCADA
networks. Additionally, application white listing solutions are
being implemented because of their ability to prevent malware
and unauthorized application changes without the performance
impacts of traditional antivirus scans. Also, the ISA Security
Compliance Institute (ISCI) is emerging to formalize SCADA
security testing starting as soon as 2009. ISCI is conceptually
similar to private testing and certification that has been
performed by vendors since 2007. The increased interest in
SCADA vulnerabilities has resulted in vulnerability
researchers discovering vulnerabilities in commercial SCADA
software and more general offensive SCADA techniques
presented to the general security community.
II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
The move from proprietary technologies to more standardized
and open solutions together with the increased number of
connections between SCADA systems and office networks and
the Internet has made them more vulnerable to attacks.
Consequently, the security of SCADA-based systems has come
into question as they are increasingly seen as extremely
vulnerable to cyberwarfare/cyberterrorism attacks.
In particular, security researchers are concerned about:
The lack of concern about security and authentication in
the design, deployment and operation of existing SCADA
networks.
The mistaken belief that SCADA systems have the benefit
of security through obscurity through the use of
specialized protocols and proprietary interfaces.
The mistaken belief that SCADA networks are secure
because they are purportedly physically secured.
The mistaken belief that SCADA networks are secure
because they are supposedly disconnected from the
Internet.
III. METODOLOGY
1. Systems concepts
The term SCADA usually refers to centralized systems which
monitor and control entire sites, or complexes of systems
spread out over large areas (anything between an industrial
plant and a country). Most control actions are performed
automatically by remote terminal units ("RTUs") or by
programmable logic controllers ("PLCs"). Host control
functions are usually restricted to basic overriding or
supervisory level intervention. For example, a PLC may
control the flow of cooling water through part of an industrial
process, but the SCADA system may allow operators to change
the set points for the flow, and enable alarm conditions, such as
loss of flow and high temperature, to be displayed and
recorded. The feedback control loop passes through the RTU
or PLC, while the SCADA system monitors the overall
performance of the loop.
Fig. Basic SCADA System
Data acquisition begins at the RTU or PLC level and includes
meter readings and equipment status reports that are
communicated to SCADA as required. Data is then compiled
and formatted in such a way that a control room operator using
the HMI can make supervisory decisions to adjust or override
normal RTU (PLC) controls. Data may also be fed to a
Historian, often built on a commodity Database Management
System, to allow trending and other analytical auditing.

SCADA systems typically implement a distributed database,
commonly referred to as a tag database, which contains data
elements called tags or points. A point represents a single input
or output value monitored or controlled by the system. Points
can be either "hard" or "soft". A hard point represents an actual
input or output within the system, while a soft point results
from logic and math operations applied to other points. (Most
implementations conceptually remove the distinction by
making every property a "soft" point expression, which may, in
the simplest case, equal a single hard point.) Points are
normally stored as value-timestamp pairs: a value, and the
timestamp when it was recorded or calculated. A series of
value-timestamp pairs gives the history of that point. It's also
common to store additional metadata with tags, such as the
path to a field device or PLC register, design time comments,
and alarm information.
A SCADA System usually consists of the following
subsystems:
• A Human-Machine Interface or HMI is the apparatus
which presents process data to a human operator, and
through this, the human operator, monitors and controls
the process.
• A supervisory (computer) system, gathering (acquiring)
data on the process and sending commands (control) to the
process.
• Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) connecting to sensors in
the process, converting sensor signals to digital data and
sending digital data to the supervisory system.
• Programmable Logic Controller (PLCs) used as field
devices because they are more economical, versatile,
flexible, and configurable than special-purpose RTUs.
• Communication infrastructure connecting the supervisory
system to the Remote Terminal Units.
2. Human Machine Interface
A Human-Machine Interface or HMI is the apparatus which
presents process data to a human operator, and through which
the human operator controls the process.
The HMI system usually presents the information to the
operating personnel graphically, in the form of a mimic
diagram. This means that the operator can see a schematic
representation of the plant being controlled. For example, a
picture of a pump connected to a pipe can show the operator
that the pump is running and how much fluid it is pumping
through the pipe at the moment. The operator can then switch
the pump off. The HMI software will show the flow rate of the
fluid in the pipe decrease in real time. Mimic diagrams may
consist of line graphics and schematic symbols to represent
process elements, or may consist of digital photographs of the
process equipment overlain with animated symbols.
An important part of most SCADA implementations are
alarms. An alarm is a digital status point that has either the
value NORMAL or ALARM. Alarms can be created in such a
way that when their requirements are met, they are activated.
An example of an alarm is the "fuel tank empty" light in a car.
The SCADA operator's attention is drawn to the part of the
system requiring attention by the alarm. Emails and text
messages are often sent along with an alarm activation alerting
managers along with the SCADA operator.
3. Hardware solutions
SCADA solutions often have Distributed Control System
(DCS) components. Use of "smart" RTUs or PLCs, which are
capable of autonomously executing simple logic processes
without involving the master computer, is increasing. A
functional block programming language, IEC 61131-3 (Ladder
Logic), is frequently used to create programs which run on
these RTUs and PLCs. Unlike a procedural language such as
the C programming language or FORTRAN, IEC 61131-3 has
minimal training requirements by virtue of resembling historic
physical control arrays. This allows SCADA system engineers
to perform both the design and implementation of a program to
be executed on an RTU or PLC. Since about 1998, virtually all
major PLC manufacturers have offered integrated
HMI/SCADA systems, many of them using open and non-
proprietary communications protocols.

4. Remote Terminal Unit (RTU)
The RTU connects to physical equipment. Typically, an RTU
converts the electrical signals from the equipment to digital
values such as the open/closed status from a switch or a valve,
or measurements such as pressure, flow, voltage or current. By
converting and sending these electrical signals out to
equipment the RTU can control equipment, such as opening or
closing a switch or a valve, or setting the speed of a pump.
IV. DISTRIBUTED CONTROL SYSTEM
A distributed control system (DCS) refers to a control system
usually of a manufacturing system, process or any kind of
dynamic system, in which the controller elements are not
central in location (like the brain) but are distributed
throughout the system with each component sub-system
controlled by one or more controllers. The entire system of
controllers is connected by networks for communication and
monitoring.
DCS is a very broad term used in a variety of industries, to
monitor and control distributed equipment.
• Electrical power grids and electrical generation plants
• Environmental control systems
• Traffic signals
• Water management systems
• Oil refining plants
V.CONCLUSION
• Chemical plants
• Pharmaceutical manufacturing
• Sensor networks
• Dry cargo and bulk oil carrier ships
The preceding discussion does not constitute a formal threat
assessment. It merely presents a listing of trends affecting
CS development and a number of factors requiring
monitoring and research. On the other hand, this discussion
does project that the operational environment in 2010-2015
will likely see an increase in Capability and Opportunity
available to threat sources. Coupled with the broader
presence and exposure of control systems, this suggests the
future operational environment will be bothmore congested
and more vulnerable. Should a threat actor emerge that has
the Intent the equation Threat = Capability + Intent+
Opportunity will be complete.
REFERENCES
1. SONG X P, LIAO M F.design of internet based scada System frame for
wind power plant[J]. automation of electric power system 2006.
2. CHONG C Y, KUMAR S P.sensor networks:
Proceedings of the IEEE,2003.
3. C. M. Davis, J. E. Tate, H. Okhravi, C. Grier, T. J. Overbye, and D.
Nicol, “SCADA Cyber Security Testbed Development”, Power Symposium,
2006. NAPS 2006.
4. Ronald L. Krutz,Securing SCADA systems,Willey,2006.
5. Josh Siegle, Motorola Solutions. “Cyber Security for SCADA and ICS
Systems”, in Entelec Fall eminar Series, 2014.
6. T. Paukatong,SCADA Security: A New Concerning Issue of an In-house
EGAT-SCADA 2005 IEEE/PES Transmission and Distribution Conference
& Exhibition:Asia and Pacific Dalian,China.
7. American Petroleum Institute, API 1164:SCADA Security,
Washington,DC,2004.
8. D. Kilman and J. Stamp, Framework for SCADA security policy,
Technical Repot SAND2005-1002C, Sandia National Laboratories,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2005.
9. K. Stouffer, J. Falco and K. Kent, Guide to Supervisory Control and
Industrial Control Systems Security-Initial Public Draft, National Institute
of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 2006.
10. Pollet J. Developing a solid SCADA security strategy. In: Second
ISA/IEEE sensors for industry conference, 19-21 November 2002.

IJSRED-V2I2P15

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to IJSRED-V2I2P15

Similar to IJSRED-V2I2P15 (20)

More from IJSRED

More from IJSRED (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

IJSRED-V2I2P15