Industrial control system (ICS) is a collective term used to describe different types of control systems and associated instrumentation, which include end-point devices, systems, networks, applications and controls used to operate and/or automate industrial processes.
Understanding attack methods and tools allows defenders to conduct informed threat assessment and proactively implement adequate security controls and monitoring tactics. An “attack lifecycle” or “kill chain” are common methods to describe the process of conducting cyber attacks. In the final stage, the attackers act upon their motivation and take the required action to achieve their planned mission. In the ICS domain, the attacker aims at achieving a desired outcome in the physical world. This technical white paper introduces a Cyber-Physical Attack Lifecycle and illustrates its attack stages on the example of a targeted attack on a chemical plant.
This paper consist of four parts:
- Introduction to cyber-physical systems security (Chapter 1);
- ICS Engineering Foundations, based on own experiences, the current body of knowledge on ICS infrastructures and OT cyber security, including progress achieved in Industry 4.0 concept (Chapter 2 and Appendix A);
- Introduction to a Vinyl Acetate chemical process and its control model (Chapter 3 and Appendix B);
- Cyber-Physical Attack Lifecycle and an illustration of designing a targeted cyberphysical attack on a chemical process (Chapter 4).
Note to the readers. ICS/CPS security is a complex field, it would not be possible to include all related knowledge base, nuances and critical discussions without overloading the paper and turning it into a long, overwhelming read. To the best of our abilities, we kept this white paper as concise and as comprehensive as possible.
Acknowledgment. The author expresses her deep appreciation to Jason Larsen for his pioneering work in the field of “physical damage” and for enabling the development of a new body of knowledge in cyber-physical attacks field such as presented in this whitepaper.
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