Assessing Cyber-Physical Security in Industrial Control Systems

Over the last years, Industrial Control Systems (ICS) have become increasingly exposed to a wide range of cyber-physical threats. Efficient models and techniques able to capture their complex structure and identify critical cyber-physical components are therefore essential. AND/OR graphs have proven very useful in this context as they are able to semantically grasp intricate logical interdependencies among ICS components. However, identifying critical nodes in AND/OR graphs is an NP-complete problem. In addition, ICS settings normally involve various cyber and physical security measures that simultaneously protect multiple ICS components in overlapping manners, which makes this problem even harder. In this paper, we present an extended security metric based on AND/OR hypergraphs which efficiently identifies the set of critical ICS components and security measures that should be compromised, with minimum cost (effort) for an attacker, in order to disrupt the operation of vital ICS assets. Our approach relies on MAX-SAT techniques, which we have incorporated in META4ICS, a Java-based security metric analyser for ICS. We also provide a thorough performance evaluation that shows the feasibility of our method. Finally, we illustrate our methodology through a case study in which we analyse the security posture of a realistic Water Transport Network (WTN).

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Martín Barrère

Chris Hankin

Demetrios G. Eliades

Nicolas Nicolaou

Thomas Parisini

Conference

Publication date: September 2019

Publication date (Print): September 2019

Pages: 49-58

Affiliations

[0001]Institute for Security Science and Technology

Imperial College London, UK

[0002]KIOS Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence

University of Cyprus

[0003]Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Imperial College London, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/icscsr19.7

SO-VID: 4ad936a3-730f-4e1b-a5e9-0bedcb390272

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: 6th International Symposium for ICS & SCADA Cyber Security Research 2019

Conference acronym: ICS-CSR

Conference number: 6

Conference location: Athens, Greece

Conference date: 10th-12th September 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Cyber Security Research

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/icscsr19.7

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

D. AltnerO. ErgunN. Uhan The Maximum Flow Network Interdiction Problem: Valid Inequalities, Integrality Gaps, and Approximability. Oper. Res. Lett 38 1 33 38 2010
M. BarrèreR. V. SteinerR. MohsenE. C. Lupu Tracking the Bad Guys: An Efficient Forensic Methodology To Trace Multi-step Attacks Using Core Attack Graphs 13th IEEE Int. Conf. on Network and Service Management Nov 2017
M. BarrèreC. HankinN. NicolaouD. EliadesT. Parisini 2019 Identifying Security-Critical Cyber-Physical Components in Industrial Control Systems arXiv:1905.04796 https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.04796 May 2019
C. Berge 1989 Hypergraphs: Combinatorics of Finite Sets North-Holland 1989
S. A. Cook The Complexity of Theorem-Proving Procedures Third Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing 151 158 USA 1971
CVSS, Common Vulnerability Scoring System http://www.first.org/cvss/ May 2019
2019 Global ICS & IIoT Risk Report https://cyberx-labs.com/en/risk-report-2019/ May 2019
J. DaviesF. Bacchus Solving MAXSAT by Solving a Sequence of Simpler SAT Instances J. Lee Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming 225 239 Springer 2011
Y. DengL. SongZ. ZhouP. Liu Complexity and Vulnerability Analysis of Critical Infrastructures: A Methodological Approach Mathematical Problems in Eng., ID 8673143 2017
Y. DesmedtY. Wang Analyzing Vulnerabilities Of Critical Infrastructures Using Flows And Critical Vertices And/Or Graphs. Int. J. Found. Comput. Sci. 15 1 107 125 2004
N. FalliereL. O. MurchuE. Chien W32.Stuxnet Dossier. Tech. rep 2011
L. R. FordD. R. Fulkerson Flows in Networks RAND Corporation, University Press 1962
A. HumayedJ. LinF. LiB. Luo Cyber-Physical Systems Security - A Survey. IEEE Internet of Things 4 6 1802 1831 Dec 2017
G. JakimoskiM. Burmester Using Faulty Flows in AND/OR Graphs to Model Survivability and Reliability in Distributed Systems 2004
F. L. KastensmidtL. SterponeL. CarroM. S. Reorda On the Optimal Design of Triple Modular Redundancy Logic for SRAM-based FPGAs Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe 2 1290 1295 2005
R.M. LeeM. J. AssanteT. Conway Analysis of the Cyber Attack on the Ukrainian Power Grid. Defense Use Case, SANS ICS, EISAC. Tech. rep 2016
META4ICS: Metric Analyser for Industrial Control Systems M. Barrère May 2019 [Online]. Available: https://github.com/mbarrere/meta4ics
N. NicolaouD. G. EliadesC. PanayiotouM. M. Polycarpou Reducing Vulnerability to Cyber-Physical Attacks in Water Distribution Networks Int. Workshop on Cyber-physical Sys. for Smart Water Networks 16 19 2018
A. Ostfeld Battle of the Water Calibration Networks Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 138 5 523 532 2012
V. ShandilyaC. B. SimmonsS. Shiva Use of Attack Graphs in Security Systems Journal of Computer Networks and Comms 1 1 2014
U. S. SouzaF. ProttiM. Dantas da Silva Revisiting the Complexity of And/Or Graph Solution Journal of Computer and System Sciences 79 1156 1163 2013
R. SteinerM. BarrèreE. Lupu WSNs Under Attack! How Bad Is It? Evaluating Connectivity Impact Using Centrality Measures IET Conference Proceedings 2018
K. StoufferV. PillitteriS. LightmanM. AbramsA. Hahn Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security, SP 800-82 rev2, NIST. Tech. rep. 2015
N. Trifunovic Introduction to Urban Water Distribution Taylor & Francis Group UK 1 2006
G. S. Tseitin On the Complexity of Derivation in Propositional Calculus Studies in Constructive Maths. and Mathematical Logic, Part II 1970
L. WangS. JajodiaA. Singhal Network Security Metrics Springer 1 2017

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] D. AltnerO. ErgunN. Uhan The Maximum Flow Network Interdiction Problem: Valid Inequalities, Integrality Gaps, and Approximability. Oper. Res. Lett 38 1 33 38 2010

[2] M. BarrèreR. V. SteinerR. MohsenE. C. Lupu Tracking the Bad Guys: An Efficient Forensic Methodology To Trace Multi-step Attacks Using Core Attack Graphs 13th IEEE Int. Conf. on Network and Service Management Nov 2017

[3] M. BarrèreC. HankinN. NicolaouD. EliadesT. Parisini 2019 Identifying Security-Critical Cyber-Physical Components in Industrial Control Systems arXiv:1905.04796 https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.04796 May 2019

[4] C. Berge 1989 Hypergraphs: Combinatorics of Finite Sets North-Holland 1989

[5] S. A. Cook The Complexity of Theorem-Proving Procedures Third Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing 151 158 USA 1971

[6] CVSS, Common Vulnerability Scoring System http://www.first.org/cvss/ May 2019

[7] 2019 Global ICS & IIoT Risk Report https://cyberx-labs.com/en/risk-report-2019/ May 2019

[8] J. DaviesF. Bacchus Solving MAXSAT by Solving a Sequence of Simpler SAT Instances J. Lee Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming 225 239 Springer 2011

[9] Y. DengL. SongZ. ZhouP. Liu Complexity and Vulnerability Analysis of Critical Infrastructures: A Methodological Approach Mathematical Problems in Eng., ID 8673143 2017

[10] Y. DesmedtY. Wang Analyzing Vulnerabilities Of Critical Infrastructures Using Flows And Critical Vertices And/Or Graphs. Int. J. Found. Comput. Sci. 15 1 107 125 2004

[11] N. FalliereL. O. MurchuE. Chien W32.Stuxnet Dossier. Tech. rep 2011

[12] L. R. FordD. R. Fulkerson Flows in Networks RAND Corporation, University Press 1962

[13] A. HumayedJ. LinF. LiB. Luo Cyber-Physical Systems Security - A Survey. IEEE Internet of Things 4 6 1802 1831 Dec 2017

[14] G. JakimoskiM. Burmester Using Faulty Flows in AND/OR Graphs to Model Survivability and Reliability in Distributed Systems 2004

[15] F. L. KastensmidtL. SterponeL. CarroM. S. Reorda On the Optimal Design of Triple Modular Redundancy Logic for SRAM-based FPGAs Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe 2 1290 1295 2005

[16] R.M. LeeM. J. AssanteT. Conway Analysis of the Cyber Attack on the Ukrainian Power Grid. Defense Use Case, SANS ICS, EISAC. Tech. rep 2016

[17] META4ICS: Metric Analyser for Industrial Control Systems M. Barrère May 2019 [Online]. Available: https://github.com/mbarrere/meta4ics

[18] N. NicolaouD. G. EliadesC. PanayiotouM. M. Polycarpou Reducing Vulnerability to Cyber-Physical Attacks in Water Distribution Networks Int. Workshop on Cyber-physical Sys. for Smart Water Networks 16 19 2018

[19] A. Ostfeld Battle of the Water Calibration Networks Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 138 5 523 532 2012

[20] V. ShandilyaC. B. SimmonsS. Shiva Use of Attack Graphs in Security Systems Journal of Computer Networks and Comms 1 1 2014

[21] U. S. SouzaF. ProttiM. Dantas da Silva Revisiting the Complexity of And/Or Graph Solution Journal of Computer and System Sciences 79 1156 1163 2013

[22] R. SteinerM. BarrèreE. Lupu WSNs Under Attack! How Bad Is It? Evaluating Connectivity Impact Using Centrality Measures IET Conference Proceedings 2018

[23] K. StoufferV. PillitteriS. LightmanM. AbramsA. Hahn Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security, SP 800-82 rev2, NIST. Tech. rep. 2015

[24] N. Trifunovic Introduction to Urban Water Distribution Taylor & Francis Group UK 1 2006

[25] G. S. Tseitin On the Complexity of Derivation in Propositional Calculus Studies in Constructive Maths. and Mathematical Logic, Part II 1970

[26] L. WangS. JajodiaA. Singhal Network Security Metrics Springer 1 2017

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