Covert Channels-Based Stealth Attacks in Industry 4.0

Alcaraz, Cristina; Bernieri, Giuseppe; Pascucci, Federica; López, Javier; Setola, Roberto

doi:10.1109/jsyst.2019.2912308

Cited by 35 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…On the other hand, as IIoT system activity is largely the result of automated processes, the traffic patterns tend to be fairly static and periodic, making it easier to perform accurate anomaly detection [180], [208]. Additionally, this predictability introduces the possibility for utilizing these patterns against the system through stealthy injection attacks [196], or to establish covert communication channels, as demonstrated in [172], and should be monitored against. In [176], Bernieri et al show that this predictability can be used against attackers by developing a honeypot for a water distribution system.…”

Section: G Security Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Survey of Industrial Internet of Things Security: Requirements and Fog Computing Opportunities

Tange

Donno

Fafoutis

et al. 2020

IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials

295

112

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A key application of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm lies within industrial contexts. Indeed, the emerging Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), commonly referred to as Industry 4.0, promises to revolutionize production and manufacturing through the use of large numbers of networked embedded sensing devices, and the combination of emerging computing technologies, such as Fog/Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence. The IIoT is characterized by an increased degree of inter-connectivity, which not only creates opportunities for the industries that adopt it, but also for cyber-criminals. Indeed, IoT security currently represents one of the major obstacles that prevent the widespread adoption of IIoT technology. Unsurprisingly, such concerns led to an exponential growth of published research over the last few years. To get an overview of the field, we deem it important to systematically survey the academic literature so far, and distill from it various security requirements as well as their popularity. This paper consists of two contributions: our primary contribution is a systematic review of the literature over the period 2011-2019 on IIoT Security, focusing in particular on the security requirements of the IIoT. Our secondary contribution is a reflection on how the relatively new paradigm of Fog computing can be leveraged to address these requirements, and thus improve the security of the IIoT.

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Section: G Security Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Systematic Survey of Industrial Internet of Things Security: Requirements and Fog Computing Opportunities

Tange

Donno

Fafoutis

et al. 2020

IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutorials

295

112

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Network vulnerabilities are directly related to attacks to devices and services [ 72 ]. According to the authors in [ 71 ], Industry 4.0 has created new scenarios of cyber-threats designed for classic it. To cope with this problem the authors address the security issues related to covert channels applied to industrial networks, identifying vulnerability points when classic it converges with operational technologies such as edge computing infrastructures.…”

Section: Review Of Selected Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Attacks, Vulnerabilities, and Defenses in Industry 4.0 with New Challenges on Data Sovereignty Ahead

Pedreira

Barros

Pinto

2021

Sensors

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The concepts brought by Industry 4.0 have been explored and gradually applied.The cybersecurity impacts on the progress of Industry 4.0 implementations and their interactions with other technologies require constant surveillance, and it is important to forecast cybersecurity-related challenges and trends to prevent and mitigate these impacts. The contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) it presents the results of a systematic review of industry 4.0 regarding attacks, vulnerabilities and defense strategies, (2) it details and classifies the attacks, vulnerabilities and defenses mechanisms, and (3) it presents a discussion of recent challenges and trends regarding cybersecurity-related areas for Industry 4.0. From the systematic review, regarding the attacks, the results show that most attacks are carried out on the network layer, where dos-related and mitm attacks are the most prevalent ones. Regarding vulnerabilities, security flaws in services and source code, and incorrect validations in authentication procedures are highlighted. These are vulnerabilities that can be exploited by dos attacks and buffer overflows in industrial devices and networks. Regarding defense strategies, Blockchain is presented as one of the most relevant technologies under study in terms of defense mechanisms, thanks to its ability to be used in a variety of solutions, from Intrusion Detection Systems to the prevention of Distributed dos attacks, and most defense strategies are presented as an after-attack solution or prevention, in the sense that the defense mechanisms are only placed or thought, only after the harm has been done, and not as a mitigation strategy to prevent the cyberattack. Concerning challenges and trends, the review shows that digital sovereignty, cyber sovereignty, and data sovereignty are recent topics being explored by researchers within the Industry 4.0 scope, and GAIA-X and International Data Spaces are recent initiatives regarding data sovereignty. A discussion of trends is provided, and future challenges are pointed out.

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“…The authors presented network covert storage and network covert timing channels in the network and application layer of the BACnet protocol stack to show that protocol-level covert channels in BAS are feasible. In [25], Alcaraz et al addressed the security issues related to covert channels applied to industrial networks, identifying new vulnerability points when ITs converge with operational technologies such as edge computing infrastructures. Specifically, the authors defined two signalling strategies where they exploit the Modbus/transmission control protocol (TCP) as the target to set up a covert channel.…”

Section: Covert Channels In Cpssmentioning

confidence: 99%

Covert channels in stochastic cyber‐physical systems

Lúcia

Youssef

2021

IET Cyber-Phy Sys Theory & Ap

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A covert channel is a communication channel that is not intended to exist, and that can be used to transfer information in a manner that violates the system security policy. Attackers can abuse such channels to exfiltrate sensitive information from cyber-physical systems (CPSs), for example to leak the confidential or proprietary parameters in a control system. Furthermore, attacks against CPSs can exploit the leaked information about the implementation of the control system, for example to determine optimal false data injection attack values that degrade the system performance while remaining undetected. In this study, a control theoretic approach for establishing covert channels in stochastic CPSs is presented. In particular, a scenario is considered where an attacker is able to inject malware into the networked controller and arbitrarily alter the control logic. By exploiting such capability, an attacker can establish an illegitimate communication channel, for example to transmit sensitive plant parameters, between the networked controller and an eavesdropper intercepting the sensor measurements. The authors show that such a channel can be established by exploiting the closed-loop system operations, a decoding mechanism based on an unknown input observer, and an error-correcting coding scheme that exploits the control loop to obtain an implicit acknowledgement. A simple proof of concept implementation of the covert channel is presented, and its performance is evaluated by resorting to a numerical example. Finally, some defences and countermeasures are proposed against the proposed covert channel.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Covert Channels-Based Stealth Attacks in Industry 4.0

Cited by 35 publications

References 23 publications

A Systematic Survey of Industrial Internet of Things Security: Requirements and Fog Computing Opportunities

A Systematic Survey of Industrial Internet of Things Security: Requirements and Fog Computing Opportunities

A Review of Attacks, Vulnerabilities, and Defenses in Industry 4.0 with New Challenges on Data Sovereignty Ahead

Covert channels in stochastic cyber‐physical systems

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