Paper 2004/265

sSCADA: Securing SCADA Infrastructure Communications

Yongge Wang and Bei-Tseng Chu

Abstract

Distributed control systems (DCS) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems were developed to reduce labor costs, and to allow system-wide monitoring and remote control from a central location. Control systems are widely used in critical infrastructures such as electric grid, natural gas, water, and wastewater industries. While control systems can be vulnerable to a variety of types of cyber attacks that could have devastating consequences, little research has been done to secure the control systems. This paper presents a suite of security protocols optimized for SCADA/DCS systems which include: point-to-point secure channels, authenticated broadcast channels, authenticated emergency channels, and revised authenticated emergency channels. These protocols are designed to address the specific challenges that SCADA systems have.