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Investigation of Cyber Attacks on a Water Distribution System

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Applied Cryptography and Network Security Workshops (ACNS 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 12418))

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Abstract

A Cyber Physical System (CPS) consists of cyber components for computation and communication, and physical components such as sensors and actuators for process control. These components are networked and interact in a feedback loop. CPS are found in critical infrastructure such as water distribution, power grid, and mass transportation. Often these systems are vulnerable to attacks as the cyber components are potential targets for attackers. In this work, we report a study to investigate the impact of cyber attacks on a water distribution (WADI) system. Attacks were designed to meet attacker objectives and launched on WADI using a specially designed tool. This tool enables the launch of single and multi-point attacks where the latter are designed to specifically hide one or more attacks. The outcome of the experiments led to a better understanding of attack propagation and behavior of WADI in response to the attacks as well as to the design of an attack detection mechanism for water distribution system.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.securityweek.com/attackers-alter-water-treatment-systems-utility-hack-report.

  2. 2.

    https://www.secureworks.com/blog/vulnerability-assessments-versus-penetration-tests.

  3. 3.

    https://itrust.sutd.edu.sg/research/testbeds/water-distribution-wadi/.

  4. 4.

    https://gitlab.com/gyani/NiSploit.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported in part by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore, under its National Cybersecurity R&D Programme (Award No. NRF2014NCR-NCR001-40, NRF2015NCR-NCR003-001) and administered by the National Cybersecurity R&D Directorate. The WADI testbed is built with the support from Ministry of Defense, Singapore and SUTD-MIT International Design Centre (IDC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. iTrust Centre for Research in Cyber Security, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, Singapore

    Sridhar Adepu, Gyanendra Mishra & Aditya Mathur

  2. Indian Institute of Petroleum and Energy-Visakhapatnam, Sabbavaram, India

    Venkata Reddy Palleti

Authors
  1. Sridhar Adepu
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  2. Venkata Reddy Palleti
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  3. Gyanendra Mishra
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  4. Aditya Mathur
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sridhar Adepu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, Singapore

    Jianying Zhou

  2. University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Mauro Conti

  3. Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, Singapore

    Chuadhry Mujeeb Ahmed

  4. The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Man Ho Au

  5. ICIS, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Lejla Batina

  6. University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Zhou Li

  7. University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Jingqiang Lin

  8. University of Padua, Padua, Italy

    Eleonora Losiouk

  9. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Bo Luo

  10. CIISE, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Suryadipta Majumdar

  11. Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

    Weizhi Meng

  12. AppGate Inc., Bogotá, Colombia

    Martín Ochoa

  13. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Stjepan Picek

  14. Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA

    Georgios Portokalidis

  15. City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Cong Wang

  16. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong

    Kehuan Zhang

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Adepu, S., Palleti, V.R., Mishra, G., Mathur, A. (2020). Investigation of Cyber Attacks on a Water Distribution System. In: Zhou, J., et al. Applied Cryptography and Network Security Workshops. ACNS 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12418. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61638-0_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61638-0_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-61637-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-61638-0

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