Integrated protection of industrial control systems from cyber-attacks: the ATENA approach

Abstract

Industrial and Automation Control systems traditionally achieved security thanks to the use of proprietary protocols and isolation from the telecommunication networks. Nowadays, the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things poses new security challenges. In this paper, we first highlight the main security challenges that advocate for new risk assessment and security strategies.To this end we propose a security framework and advanced tools to properly manage vulnerabilities, and to timely react to the threats. The proposed architecture fills the gap between computer science and control theoretic approaches. The physical layers connected to Industrial Control Systems are prone to disrupt when facing cyber-attacks. Considering the modules of the proposed architecture, we focus on the development of a practical framework to compare information about physical faults and cyber-attacks. This strat-egy is implemented in the ATENA architecture which has been designed as an innovative solution for the protection of critical assets.

Controlled Optimal Black Start Procedures in Smart Grids for Service Restoration in Presence of Electrical Storage Systems

“…It is trivial to verify that the constraints (19) imply the two sought relations, and, as detailed in [16], [19], as long as the third constraint is active the conified power flow shares the same solution with the original nonlinear one. The activation to the equality of the third constraint in ( 19) can be imposed by minimizing R ij [16] and this is attained by our controller thanks to the presence of the third term in the objective function (1), which represents the minimization of power losses. The power flow equations hence become [4]:…”

“…During the recent years, a significant amount of research and investments has been spent to improve the security of power systems, which transitioned from purely passive networks into an evolved Cyber Physisical System [1] in which sophisticated controller are able to provide advanced services, such as demand-side management and frequency regulation, exploiting new active devices such as Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) and Smart Home Controllers. In fact, in modern micro grids, the quantity of controllable loads and distributed generators is significantly increasing, also thanks to the degree of freedom brought by electro-mobility, and ESSs are being utilised to attain better service performances (e.g., minimize power losses, improve frequency regulation and enhance system stability [2], [3], resiliency [4]) and security [5] and their number is expected to increase significantly as distributed generation becomes even more pervasive [6] and electric vehicles become predominat [7].…”

Forget the Myth of the Air Gap: Machine Learning for Reliable Intrusion Detection in SCADA Systems

“…In this work, which is part of the Advanced Tools to assEss and mitigate the criticality of ICT compoNents and their dependencies over Critical InfrAstructures (ATENA) architecture [18], we aim to develop a Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) based on ML techniques to recognize attacks targeting SCADA systems, in an industrial use-case. In the following, SVM, RF and BLSTM will be introduced.…”

Securing Cyber-Physical Systems: An Optimization Framework based on OSSTMM and Genetic Algorithms

“…The H2020 project ATENA [27], in which this work was developed, deals with Critical Infrastructures (CIs) protection and focuses on both of the aforementioned research directions, mapping them on the "prevent, detect, mitigate" paradigm for security. In the context of the project ATENA, the partners proposed several solutions for adverse event mitigation [28], attack and anomaly detection [29], [30], and for the secure design of CI sub-systems [31], [32].…”