High-Fidelity Cyber and Physical Simulation of Water Distribution Systems. I: Models and Data

Abstract

Numerical simulation models are a fundamental tool for planning and managing smart water networks-an evolution of water distribution systems in which physical assets are monitored and controlled by information and communication technologies. While simulation models allow us to understand the interactions between physical processes and abstract control strategies, they ignore key implementation aspects of distributed control systems, such as the required communication over digital links. As a result, the effects of anomalies and faults in the communication on the process control cannot be investigated with existing tools. In this work, we fill this gap by introducing DHALSIM (Digital HydrAuLic SIMulator), a numerical modelling platform combining EPANET-based process simulation with a network and host emulation environment, offering a high-fidelity representation of the processes occurring in the cyber domain. We illustrate DHALSIM's key functionalities by implementing it on a benchmark water distribution system, present case studies of simulated network traffic, and demonstrate how anomalies in the behavior of the communication network affect the process data received by the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) server. In a companion paper, we further illustrate how DHALSIM enables research opportunities in the domain of cyber-physical security. The easily customizable and open source DHALSIM provides a "workbench" for studying smart water networks, developing digital twins, and designing a broad spectrum of engineering solutions.

High-Fidelity Cyber and Physical Simulation of Water Distribution Systems. II: Enabling Cyber-Physical Attack Localization

“…Here, we have provided a detailed explanation of the modules used to launch events and attacks and illustrate how to configure experiments with device attacks, network attacks, or network events. Additional details about DHALSIM are provided in (Murillo et al 2022).…”

“…The experiment configuration file defines the global options for a DHALSIM experiment; the EPANET input file is a "standard" EPANET .inp file; and the PLC configuration file indicates how many PLCs are present in the smart water network and which variable they handle. Additional information regarding these files can be found in (Murillo et al 2022) and in the website documentation: https://github.com /afmurillo/DHALSIM/blob/master/doc/configuration.rst. To launch network attacks or events, the following optional files must be provided:…”

“…For our analysis we use the case study of Anytown, which is adopted in Murillo et al (2022) to illustrate the key functionalities of DHALSIM and to study the value of network and process data under a broad range of normal operating conditions. Here, we complement that analysis by unveiling the information that the same type of data can provide for a system undergoing cyber-physical attacks.…”

“…In particular, we show that the availability of high-resolution cyber and physical data enables us to pinpoint the root cause of cyber-attacks and other observed anomalies. For our analysis, we leverage a dataset generated by digital hydraulic simulator (DHALSIM)-a numerical modelling platform built on a two-way interaction between EPANET and a network emulation tool (Murillo et al 2022)-whose functionalities are expanded here to include a framework for launching cyber-security experiments as well as automated scripts for processing the network traffic data. Our analysis is complemented by an introduction to the most common vulnerabilities affecting the industrial communication networks commonly adopted in automated water distribution systems.…”

“…As we shall see, it is necessary to understand the relationship between an industrial communication network and a physical system being controlled by an ICS. Readers can gain more in depth detail of ICS and industrial communication networks from the background section of the companion paper (Murillo et al 2022).…”