An open virtual testbed for industrial control system security research

Abstract

Industrial control system security has been a topic of scrutiny and research for several years, and many security issues are well known. However, research efforts are impeded by a lack of an open virtual industrial control system testbed for security research. This paper describes a virtual testbed framework using Python to create discrete testbed components including virtual devices and process simulators. The virtual testbed is designed such that the testbeds are inter-operable with real industrial control system devices and such that the virtual testbeds can provide comparable industrial control system network behavior to a laboratory testbed. Two virtual testbeds modeled upon actual laboratory testbeds have been developed and have been shown to be inter-operable with real industrial control system equipment and vulnerable to attacks in the same manner as a real system. Additionally, these testbeds have been quantitatively shown to produce traffic close to laboratory systems.