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      Threat Analysis of BlackEnergy Malware for Synchrophasor based Real-time Control and Monitoring in Smart Grid

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      4th International Symposium for ICS & SCADA Cyber Security Research 2016 (ICS-CSR)
      Cyber Security Research
      23 - 25 August 2016
      BlackEnergy, Malware, Cyber Attacks, Synchrophasors, Smart Grid, IEEE C37.118, IEC 61850-90-5
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            Abstract

            The BlackEnergy malware targeting critical infrastructures has a long history. It evolved over time from a simple DDoS platform to a quite sophisticated plug-in based malware. The plug-in architecture has a persistent malware core with easily installable attack specific modules for DDoS, spamming, info-stealing, remote access, boot-sector formatting etc. BlackEnergy has been involved in several high profile cyber physical attacks including the recent Ukraine power grid attack in December 2015. This paper investigates the evolution of BlackEnergy and its cyber attack capabilities. It presents a basic cyber attack model used by BlackEnergy for targeting industrial control systems. In particular, the paper analyzes cyber threats of BlackEnergy for synchrophasor based systems which are used for real-time control and monitoring functionalities in smart grid. Several BlackEnergy based attack scenarios have been investigated by exploiting the vulnerabilities in two widely used synchrophasor communication standards: (i) IEEE C37.118 and (ii) IEC 61850-90-5. Further, the paper also investigates protection strategies for detection and prevention of BlackEnergy based cyber physical attacks.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Conference
            October 2016
            October 2016
            : 53-63
            Affiliations
            [0001]Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom
            Article
            10.14236/ewic/ICS2016.7
            10d22d10-d6e7-4adb-99e8-f0da80843c89
            © Khan et al. Published byBCS Learning & Development Ltd.Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium for ICS & SCADA Cyber Security Research 2016

            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/

            4th International Symposium for ICS & SCADA Cyber Security Research 2016
            ICS-CSR
            4
            Queen’s Belfast University, UK
            23 - 25 August 2016
            Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)
            Cyber Security Research
            History
            Product

            1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

            Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/ICS2016.7
            Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/
            Categories
            Electronic Workshops in Computing

            Applied computer science,Computer science,Security & Cryptology,Graphics & Multimedia design,General computer science,Human-computer-interaction
            BlackEnergy,Cyber Attacks,IEEE C37.118,Synchrophasors,Smart Grid,IEC 61850-90-5,Malware

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