Abstract
Information and communications technology (ICT) is prevalent in almost every field of industrial production and manufacturing processes at present. A typical industry network consists of sensors, actuators, devices, and services to connect, track, and manage production processes to increase performance and boost productivity. The SEMI Equipment Communications Standard/Generic Equipment Model (SECS/GEM) is SEMI's Machine-to-Machine (M2M) protocol for equipment-to-host data communications. It is the most popular and profoundly used M2M communication protocol operating in the manufacturing industry. With Industry 4.0 as a guiding factor, connectivity to business networks is required for accessing real-time data whenever and wherever needed. This openness of connectivity raises security concerns as SECS/GEM protocol offers no security, which endangers exposing the manufacturing industries' business secrets and production processes. This paper discusses the key processes involved in SECS/GEM communications and how potential attackers can manipulate these processes to obtain illegal or unauthorized access. The experiments' results indicate that the SECS/GEM processes are entirely vulnerable to numerous attacks, including DoS attack, Replay attack, and False-Data-Injection-Attack. Thus, the future direction involves developing a prevention mechanism that aims at securing the SECS/GEM processes in the industrial network. This study's findings are useful as preliminary guidance for the infrastructure owners to plan for appropriate security measures to protect the industrial network.
Highlights
Over the past few decades, technological advancements have progressed so rapidly that we have reached the fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0, commonly termed as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or smart manufacturing [1]
SECS/GEM has been seen as the cornerstone to semiconductor industries, and it has been in profound use since its inception
As SECS/GEM does not offer any security mechanism, all these messages are subject to cyberattacks
Summary
Over the past few decades, technological advancements have progressed so rapidly that we have reached the fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0, commonly termed as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or smart manufacturing [1]. Recent incidents of security breaches and cybercrimes have reached the epidemic stage in the manufacturing industry, rendering the manufacturing industry the most vulnerable and targeted sector by attackers [4]. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) computer virus attack was Taiwan's biggest information security infringement in its history. It fully exposed the information security weaknesses at production plants as the manufacturing industry embraces the fourth industrial revolution, or industry 4.0, with increasing automation and data exchange [6]. This paper, includes a brief explanation of the relevant aspects of the SECS/GEM standard in order to fully comprehend the mechanics of these cyberattacks on industrial networks.
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