Impact Analysis of Attacks Using Agent-Based SCADA Testbed

Abstract

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are used to control and monitor the critical infrastructure such as electricity, gas, water. SCADA system networks are originally started as local control systems and have expanded to wide-area control systems. The integration of different networks leads to various cyber security vulnerabilities. Many of the SCADA systems are relatively insecure with chronic and pervasive vulnerabilities. Ever-growing threat of cyber terrorism and vulnerability of the SCADA systems is the most common subject for security researchers. With increase in both internal and external threats, it is required to analyze the impact of these attacks on SCADA system in terms of availability and performance. A testbed is needed as it is impractical to conduct any security experiments on a real SCADA system. This paper presents the experimental SCADA testbed using multi-agent framework. Simulation of attacks such as denial of service, man-in-the-middle attacks, and malwares can be conducted on testbed to analyze the impact of these attacks. Experiments have been conducted on SCADA testbed by targeting performance and availability of the system, and the results can be studied using SCADA threat analyzer (STA) and security information and event management (SIEM) tool.