The Challenges of the Internet of Things Considering Industrial Control Systems

Smith, Kim; Wilson, Ian D.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-91218-5_4

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A malfunction threat or attack may cause substantive damages with economic and even life losses in the real world [4]. PLC is the main target in almost all security events against the ICS [17], relating to most potential attacks and threats [18]. Although different PLC manufacturers have significant differences, such as protocols, programming languages, and firmware [19], the firmware tampering attack is a general attack method.…”

Section: Preliminaries: Plc Structure and Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Aye: A Trusted Forensic Method for Firmware Tampering Attacks

Zhang

2023

Symmetry

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is located at the junction of the virtual network and physical reality in the Industrial Control System (ICS), which is vulnerable to attacks due to its weak security. Specifically, firmware tampering attacks take the firmware under the PLC operating system as the primary attack target. The firmware provides the bridge between PLC’s hardware and software, which means tampering against the firmware can be more destructive and harmful than other attacks. However, existing defense and forensics methods against firmware tampering attacks are asymmetrical, which directly leads to the proliferation of such attacks and the difficulty of forensic tracing. How to accurately, quickly, and efficiently conduct forensics for such attacks is an urgent problem. In this paper, we designed and implemented a reliable detection method based on Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) and memory comparison—Aye, which can detect mainstream firmware tampering attacks reliably. To determine the effectiveness and reliability of Aye, we selected a widely used PLC to observe Aye’s performance in defense and forensics by simulating the two latest PLC firmware tampering attack methods. The experimental results show that Aye can effectively defend against firmware tampering attacks, helping improve the efficiency and accuracy of such attack detection and forensics.

show abstract

Section: Preliminaries: Plc Structure and Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%