Security for Industrial Communication System using Encryption / Decryption Modules

Abstract

The industrial communication systems of present time are to a large extent based on commercial operating systems, open protocol implementation & communication application which are not secure. By connecting to the internet or other public networks these risks are exposed to potential attacker and cause damage to the industries. The data send by the network can be tampered causing network failure. This results in an increase in the downtime of the industry causing major loss. The industrial communication channel can be accessed by unauthorized person and uncorrect information can be transmitted, i.e. the originality of the information is violated. Cryptography is the technique, which is used to improve SCADA security. Cryptography is hiding of actual information. But SCADA protocols do not support any type of cryptography due to limited computational capabilities of SCADA device and low rate data transmission in SCADA network. To tackle this situation we are introducing an encrypting/decrypting module (ENIGMA) which can be connected at one end of the plant and one end of the control room. The encrypting module encrypts the data at the transmitting end and transmits it through the communication channel. The decrypting module decrypts the data received via the communication channel.