Biblio

Las Infraestructuras Críticas (ICs) son monitorizadas por sistemas altamente complejos, conocidos como sistemas SCADA (Sistemas de Control y Adquisición de Datos), cuyo principal soporte se encuentra en las subestaciones, las cuales miden de primera instancia el estado real de tales ICs. Para mejorar este control, la industria está actualmente demandando la integración en el modelo tradicional de dos avances tecnológicos: Internet y las redes de sensores inalámbricas. Sin embargo, su incorporación requiere analizar los requisitos de seguridad que surgen en dicho contexto, así como diversos aspectos correlacionados (ej. mantenimiento, rendimiento, seguridad y optimización) y, en base a estos, la estrategia de integración más adecuada para satisfacer dichos requisitos. Este artículo proporciona dicho análisis en profundidad con el fin de ofrecer un modelo de integración seguro adecuado para entornos críticos.

SCADA systems represent a challenging scenario where the management of critical alarms is crucial. Their response to these alarms should be efficient and fast in order to mitigate or contain undesired effects. This work presents a mechanism, the Adaptive Assignment Manager (AAM) that will aid to react to incidences in a more efficient way by dynamically assigning alarms to the most suitable human operator. The mechanism uses various inputs for identifying the operators such as their availability, workload and reputation. In fact, we also define a reputation component that stores the reputation of the human operators and uses feedback from past experiences.

Las infraestructuras críticas, como el sector energético, la banca, el transporte, y muchas otras, son un pilar esencial para en bienestar de la sociedad y la economía de un país. Estas infraestructuras dependen a su vez de ciertas infraestructuras de información, las cuales permiten su correcto funcionamiento. La tarea de proteger esas infraestructuras (de información) críticas es compleja y multidimensional, con una gran cantidad de desafíos por resolver. Precisamente, las redes de sensores pueden ser de gran ayuda para esta tarea, debido a suscapacidades de control distribuidas y a su habilidad de funcionar en situaciones extremas. Este artículo analiza la utilidad de las redes de sensores en este contexto, describiendo tanto sus capacidades como sus posibles roles y mecanismos de integración para la protección de infraestructuras (de información) críticas.

It is commonly agreed that Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is one of the technologies that better fulfills features like the ones required by Critical (Information) Infrastructures. However, a sensor network is highly vulnerable against any external or internal attacks, thus network designers must know which are the tools that they can use in order to avoid such problems. In this paper we describe in detail a procedure (the KMS Guidelines), developed under our CRISIS project, that allows network designers to choose a certain Key Management System, or at least to know which protocol need to improve in order to satisfy the network requirements.

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) have become a serious hazard for any critical infrastructure, as a single solution to protect all industrial assets from these complex attacks does not exist. It is then essential to understand what are the defense mechanisms that can be used as a first line of defense. For this purpose, this article will firstly study the spectrum of attack vectors that APTs can use against existing and novel elements of an industrial ecosystem. Afterwards, this article will provide an analysis of the evolution and applicability of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) that have been proposed in both the industry and academia.

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) have become a serious hazard for any critical infrastructure, as a single solution to protect all industrial assets from these complex attacks does not exist. It is then essential to understand what are the defense mechanisms that can be used as a first line of defense. For this purpose, this article will firstly study the spectrum of attack vectors that APTs can use against existing and novel elements of an industrial ecosystem. Afterwards, this article will provide an analysis of the evolution and applicability of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) that have been proposed in both the industry and academia.

Beyond fifth generation (B5G) communication networks and computation paradigms in the edge are expected to be integrated into power grid infrastructures over the coming years. In this sense, AI technologies will play a fundamental role to efficiently manage dynamic information flows of future applications, which impacts the authorization policies applied in such a complex scenario. This article studies how digital twins can evolve their context awareness capabilities and simulation technologies to anticipate faults or to detect cyber-security issues in real time, and update access control policies accordingly. Our study analyzes the evolution of monitoring platforms and architecture decentralization, including the application of machine learning and blockchain technologies in the smart grid, toward the goal of implementing autonomous and self-learning agents in the medium and long term. We conclude this study with future challenges on applying digital twins to B5G-based smart grid deployments.

Debido a la necesidad de proteger los sistemas industriales ante amenazas, se hace necesario comprender cual es el verdadero alcance de los mecanismos capaces de detectar potenciales anomalías e intrusiones. Es por tanto el objetivo de este artículo analizar el estado y la evolución, tanto académica como industrial, de los mecanismos de detección de intrusiones en este campo, así como estudiar su aplicabilidad actual y futura.

Debido a la necesidad de proteger los sistemas industriales ante amenazas, se hace necesario comprender cual es el verdadero alcance de los mecanismos capaces de detectar potenciales anomalías e intrusiones. Es por tanto el objetivo de este artículo analizar el estado y la evolución, tanto académica como industrial, de los mecanismos de detección de intrusiones en este campo, así como estudiar su aplicabilidad actual y futura.

Debido a la necesidad de proteger los sistemas industriales ante amenazas, se hace necesario comprender cual es el verdadero alcance de los mecanismos capaces de detectar potenciales anomalías e intrusiones. Es por tanto el objetivo de este artículo analizar el estado y la evolución, tanto académica como industrial, de los mecanismos de detección de intrusiones en este campo, así como estudiar su aplicabilidad actual y futura.

En el momento que se introduce en el mercado nuevas tecnologías basadas en entornos distribuidos comienzan a surgir en paralelo nuevos problemas de seguridad en los sistemas SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), los cuales monitorizan y gestionan otras infraestructuras de gran complejidad y escala. Un fallo o una interrupción en uno de sus componentes podría suponer un impacto negativo sobre la funcionalidad de otras infraestructuras, por lo que se hace necesario realizar frecuentes análisis de seguridad para así mantener actualizado el conocimiento y proveer recomendaciones y/o soluciones para mitigar o evitar futuras ocurrencias, garantizando una gestión de red fiable y siempre disponible.

In Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) scenarios, where a plethora of IoT technologies coexist with consolidated industrial infrastructures, the integration of security mechanisms that provide protection against cyber-security attacks becomes a critical challenge. Due to the stealthy and persistent nature of some of these attacks, such as Advanced Persistent Threats, it is crucial to go beyond traditional Intrusion Detection Systems for the traceability of these attacks. In this sense, Opinion Dynamics poses a novel approach for the correlation of anomalies, which has been successfully applied to other network security domains. In this paper, we aim to analyze its applicability in the IIoT from a technical point of view, by studying its deployment over different IIoT architectures and defining a common framework for the acquisition of data considering the computational constraints involved. The result is a beneficial insight that demonstrates the feasibility of this approach when applied to upcoming IIoT infrastructures.

In Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) scenarios, where a plethora of IoT technologies coexist with consolidated industrial infrastructures, the integration of security mechanisms that provide protection against cyber-security attacks becomes a critical challenge. Due to the stealthy and persistent nature of some of these attacks, such as Advanced Persistent Threats, it is crucial to go beyond traditional Intrusion Detection Systems for the traceability of these attacks. In this sense, Opinion Dynamics poses a novel approach for the correlation of anomalies, which has been successfully applied to other network security domains. In this paper, we aim to analyze its applicability in the IIoT from a technical point of view, by studying its deployment over different IIoT architectures and defining a common framework for the acquisition of data considering the computational constraints involved. The result is a beneficial insight that demonstrates the feasibility of this approach when applied to upcoming IIoT infrastructures.

Critical Infrastructures are complex and highly interconnected systems that are crucial for the well-being of the society. Any type of failure can cause significant damage, affecting one or more sectors due to their inherent interdependency. Not only the infrastructures are critical, but also the information infrastructures that manage, control and supervise them. Due to the seriousness of the consequences, the protection of these critical (information) infrastructures must have the highest priority. It is the purpose of this book chapter to review and discuss about these infrastructures, to explain their elements, and to highlight their research and development issues. This chapter will also discuss the role of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) technology in the protection of these infrastructures.

Nowadays, Smart Grid is envisaged to provide several benefits to both customers and grid operators. However, Smart Meters introduce many privacy issues if consumption data is analysed. In this paper we analyse the main techniques that address privacy when collecting electricity readings. In addition to privacy, it is equally important to preserve efficiency to carry on with monitoring operations, so further control requirements and communication protocols are also studied. Our aim is to provide guidance to installers who intend to integrate such mechanisms on the grid, presenting an expert system to recommend an appropriate deployment strategy.

The Smart Grid offers many benefits due to the bidirectional communication between the users and the utility company, which makes it possible to perform a fine-grain consumption metering. This can be used for Demand Response purposes with the generation and delivery of electricity in real time. It is essential to rapidly anticipate high peaks of demand or potential attacks, so as to avoid power outages and denial of service, while effectively supplying consumption areas. In this paper, we propose a novel architecture where cloud computing resources are leveraged (and tested in practice) to enable, on the one hand, the consumption prediction through time series forecasting, as well as load balancing to uniformly distribute the demand over a set of available generators. On the other and, it also allows the detection of connectivity losses and intrusions within the control network by using controllability concepts.

Critical Infrastructures, such as energy, banking, and transport, are an essential pillar to the well-being of the national and international economy, security and quality of life. These infrastructures are dependent on a spectrum of highly interconnected information infrastructures for their smooth, reliable and continuous operation. The field of protecting such Critical Information Infrastructures, or CIIP, faces numerous challenges, such as managing the secure interaction between peers, assuring the resilience and robustness of the overall system, and deploying warning and alert systems, amongst others. In this tapestry of CIIP, Wireless Sensor Networks can be used as an invaluable tool due to their intelligent distributed control capabilities, alongside with their capability to work under severe conditions. In this paper, we justify why Wireless Sensor Networks technology is suitable for providing security for these scenarios, describing both their advantages and research issues and their role in the overall scheme of protecting the Critical Information Infrastructures.

In recent years, the Smart Grid has increasingly integrated cutting-edge technologies that generate several benefits for all the stakeholders involved, such as a more accurate billing system and enhanced Demand Response procedures. However, this modernization also brings with it diverse cyber security and privacy issues, which sets the necessity for developing a security platform specifically tailored to this scenario. In this paper, we present SealedGRID, which proposes a flexible architecture that provides security services at all levels by implementing Trusted Execution Environments on their devices, together with advanced authentication and authorization mechanisms, as well as privacy preserving techniques. These technologies are presented in depth and a final security analysis is conducted, which highlights the contributions of this project.

When a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system monitors and manages other complex infrastructures through the use of distributed technologies, it becomes a critical infrastructure by itself: A failure or disruption in any of its components could implicate a serious impact on the performance of the other infrastructures. The connection with other systems makes a SCADA system more vulnerable against attacks, generating new security problems. As a result, it is essential to perform diverse security analysis frequently in order to keep an updated knowledge and to provide recommendations and/or solutions to mitigate or avoid anomalous events. This will facilitate the existence of a suitable, reliable, and available control network.

Energy distribution systems are becoming increasingly widespread in today’s society. One of the elements that is used to monitor and control these systems are the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems. In particular, these control systems and their complexities, together with the emerging use of the Internet and wireless technologies, bring new challenges that must be carefully considered. Examples of such challenges are the particular bene¯ts of the integration of those new technologies, and also the e®ects they may have on the overall SCADA security. The main task of this paper is to provide a framework that shows how the integration of di®erent state-of-the-art technologies in an energy control system, such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs), and the Internet, can bring some interesting benefits such as status management and anomaly prevention, while maintaining the security of the whole system.

The main objective of remote substations is to provide the central system with sensitive information from critical infrastructures, such as generation, distribution or transmission power systems. Wireless sensor networks have been recently applied in this particular context due to their attractive services and inherent benefits, such as simplicity, reliability and cost savings. However, as the number of control and data acquisition systems that use the Internet infrastructure to connect to substations increases, it is necessary to consider what connectivity model the sensor infrastructure should follow: either completely isolated from the Internet or integrated with it as part of the Internet of Things paradigm. This paper therefore addresses this question by providing a thorough analysis of both security requirements and infrastructural requirements corresponding to all those TCP/IP integration strategies that can be applicable to networks with constrained computational resources.

The introduction of the Smart Grid brings with it several benefits to society, because its bi-directional communication allows both users and utilities to have better control over energy usage. However, it also has some privacy issues with respect to the privacy of the customers when analysing their consumption data. In this paper we review the main privacy-preserving techniques that have been proposed and compare their efficiency, to accurately select the most appropriate ones for undertaking control operations. Both privacy and performance are essential for the rapid adoption of Smart Grid technologies.

The extraordinary growth of the Information Society is originating a high dependency on ICT. This provokes that those strongly interrelated technological infrastructures, as well as the information systems that underpin them, become highly critical, since their disruption would lead to high economical, material and, sometimes, human loss. As a consequence, the protection of these Critical Information Infrastructures is becoming a major objective for governments and companies. In this paper, we give an overview of the main challenges and open research issues on Critical Information Infrastructure security, and introduce an on-going research project that, using wireless sensor networks as an underlying technology, is dealing with those problems. Our research project focuses on the development of protection, control, evaluation, maintenance and verification mechanisms, integrated into a secure service-oriented architecture.

Any deliberate or unsuitable operational action in control tasks of critical infrastructures, such as energy generation, transmission and distribution systems that comprise sub-domains of a Smart Grid, could have a significant impact on the digital economy: without energy, the digital economy cannot live. In addition, the vast majority of these types of critical systems are configured in isolated locations where their control depends on the ability of a few, supposedly trustworthy, human operators. However, this assumption of reliabilty is not always true. Malicious human operators (criminal insiders) might take advantage of these situations to intentionally manipulate the critical nature of the underlying infrastructure. These criminal actions could be not attending to emergency events, inadequately responding to incidents or trying to alter the normal behaviour of the system with malicious actions. For this reason, in this paper we propose a smart response mechanism that controls human operators’ operational threats at all times. Moreover, the design of this mechanism allows the system to be able to not only evaluate by itself, the situation of a particular scenario but also to take control when areas are totally unprotected and/or isolated. The response mechanism, which is based on Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) for the constant monitoring of observed critical infrastructures, on reputation for controlling human operators’ actions, and on the ISA100.11a standard for alarm management, has been implemented and simulated to evaluate its feasibility for critical contexts.

Advanced persistent threats pose a serious issue for modern industrial environments, due to their targeted and complex attack vectors that are difficult to detect. This is especially severe in critical infrastructures that are accelerating the integration of IT technologies. It is then essential to further develop effective monitoring and response systems that ensure the continuity of business to face the arising set of cyber-security threats. In this paper, we study the practical applicability of a novel technique based on opinion dynamics, that permits to trace the attack throughout all its stages along the network by correlating different anomalies measured over time, thereby taking the persistence of threats and the criticality of resources into consideration. The resulting information is of essential importance to monitor the overall health of the control system and correspondingly deploy accurate response procedures.

Advanced persistent threats pose a serious issue for modern industrial environments, due to their targeted and complex attack vectors that are difficult to detect. This is especially severe in critical infrastructures that are accelerating the integration of IT technologies. It is then essential to further develop effective monitoring and response systems that ensure the continuity of business to face the arising set of cyber-security threats. In this paper, we study the practical applicability of a novel technique based on opinion dynamics, that permits to trace the attack throughout all its stages along the network by correlating different anomalies measured over time, thereby taking the persistence of threats and the criticality of resources into consideration. The resulting information is of essential importance to monitor the overall health of the control system and correspondingly deploy accurate response procedures.

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) behave as a digital skin, providing a virtual layer where the information about the physical world can be accessed by any computational system. As a result, they are an invaluable resource for realizing the vision of the Internet of Things (IoT). However, it is necessary to consider whether the devices of a WSN should be completely integrated into the Internet or not. In this paper, we tackle this question from the perspective of security. While we will mention the different security challenges that may arise in such integration process, we will focus on the issues that take place at the network level.