Volume 71, Issue 9 - Special Issue: Cybersecurity for industrial automation and control systems; Guest Editors: Christian Haas, Georg Bretthauer und Jürgen Beyerer

The Act on Federal Office for Information Security (BSI Act) explicitly mandates the use of attack detection systems. The BSI works together with operators of process plants as well as discrete manufacturing facilities in order to test sensors, which may be part of such systems, in their networks. This gives the BSI the opportunity to record a collection of network traffic from those plants. One goal is to improve the detection and characterization of devices in industrial networks by implementing new or enhanced features for the open source network monitoring tool suite Malcolm. In this context, the recording of the network traffic represents the starting point for further investigations. This paper highlights what needs to be considered in these recordings to serve as a basis for device identification and characterization.

Cooperative control is crucial for the effective operation of dynamical multi-agent systems. Especially for distributed control schemes, it is essential to exchange data between the agents. This becomes a privacy threat if the data are sensitive. Encrypted control has shown the potential to address this risk and ensure confidentiality. However, existing approaches mainly focus on cloud-based control and distributed schemes are restrictive. In this paper, we present a novel privacy-preserving cooperative control scheme based on encrypted distributed optimization. More precisely, we focus on a secure distributed solution of a general consensus problem, which has manifold applications in cooperative control, by means of the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). As a unique feature of our approach, we explicitly take into account the common situation that local decision variables contain copies of quantities associated with neighboring agents and ensure the neighbor’s privacy. We show the effectiveness of our method based on a numerical case study dealing with the formation of mobile robots.

The digitalization of industry and the convergence of IT and OT bring about the next generation of industrial automation systems which are expected to work with an orchestration of physical and virtualized components using a single converged network. The increase of complexity in such systems must be managed by an increase in automation for orchestration and management. However, bootstrapping such a complex system from out-of-the-box components is still a manual and error-prone process. We present a bootstrapping concept that brings up a system from out-of-the-box components to an operational solution with physical and virtualized components. The concept combines incremental network discovery with secure incremental bootstrapping of discovered physical components. The gained trust in the physical components of the network is then used to translate this trust into virtualized components. By attesting the trustworthiness of hosting infrastructure, the concept allows for virtualized components to be securely assigned a cryptographically secure identity that can be used in further application onboarding. Such securely bootstrapped systems are then capable to deliver the required adaptable, modular, and secure automation solutions of the future.

Zusammenfassung „Security by Design“ ist der Begriff für die Verlagerung von Cybersecurity-Überlegungen von den Endnutzern eines Systems auf dessen Planer und Realisierer im Engineering. Um die Last auf den Schultern der Endnutzer zu verringern, müssen Security-Entscheidungen nicht nur während der Entwicklung getroffen werden, sondern auch in einer Weise, die für Dritte nachvollziehbar ist. Planer von industriellen Automatisierungssystemen (ICS) verfügen jedoch in der Regel weder über Security-Expertise noch über Zeit für das Security-Engineering. Die in dieser Arbeit vorgestellte Methode „Security by Design Decisions“ soll sie in die Lage versetzen, Security-Entscheidungen trotzdem selbstständig zu identifizieren, zu treffen und zu begründen. Kernelemente der Methode sind funktionsbasierte Diagramme sowie vordefinierte Bibliotheken mit typischen Funktionen und deren Security-Parametern. Die als Software-Demonstrator implementierte Methode wurde mit HIMA, einem deutschen Spezialisten für sicherheitsgerichtete Automatisierungslösungen, validiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Planer mit ihrer Hilfe Security-Entscheidungen identifizieren, treffen und nachvollziehbar dokumentieren können, die sie sonst nicht (bewusst) getroffen hätten – schnell und mit wenig Security-Expertise. Die Methode ist auch gut geeignet, um weniger erfahrenen Personen Wissen über Security-Entscheidungen zugänglich zu machen. Zusammengefasst können mit der Methode „Security by Design Decisions“ mehr Personen in kürzerer Zeit zur „Security by Design“ eines ICS beitragen.

IT vulnerabilities, cyber threats, and resulting risks significantly impact the stability of current and future power grids. The results of a Risk Assessment process contribute to a better understanding of the causes and nature of the associated risks. The risks assessed by experts are available in both numerical and linguistic representations – this makes it beneficial to include a combination of linguistic and numerical analyses. In this paper, we propose a new Hybrid Risk Assessment method based on fuzzy logic, leading to more precise results. The presented approach specifies the variables and membership functions of fuzzy logic with reference to Smart Grids. For this propose, a case study with five risk events in a small-scale Smart Grid is carried out as an example. The results can then support decision-makers in ensuring grid stability.

The digitalization of substations leads to a high degree of automation, which is referred to as Digital Substations with the use of the IEC 61850. An increase in cybersecurity is necessary, and technically enabled by detection and incident response systems – security-by-design is currently often secondary. The next transformation step of substations is introduced and outlined in this paper as a cyber-resilient digital substation. Based on a state-of-the-art description, this paper presents a definition of cyber resilience for digital substations as a basis for the introduced cyber resilience monitor. The monitor acts as a central instance for recording, assessing and responding to security threats and incidents. Furthermore, the requirements for the system structure of the cyber-resilient digital substation are shown and underpinned with current research approaches.

With the increasing frequency of cyberattacks on Industrial Control Systems (ICS), the subject of cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important. Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) provides information about cyber adversaries, including their intentions and attack techniques. This paper analyzes the availability of open-source CTI for ICS, with a particular focus on technical indicators that can aid in detecting cyberattacks. Furthermore, this paper examines the automated integration of CTI data into SIEM systems and introduces CTIExchange as a tool that facilitates this integration by connecting Threat Intelligence Platforms with detection tools.