1. Cyber Security in the Water Sector
Author: Brandon Khoury
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Lingfeng Wang
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

2. Research Objectives
Highlight importance of cyber security in water sector
Review historical progression
Intrusion path analysis
Means of risk mitigation and assessment

3. Background Vital to the daily function of the general population
Small amount of water plants provide service to over three quarters of U.S. population [1]
Industry mission sight includes reliable and affordable water services

4. Background cont. Industrial automation technology Components
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks
Industrial Control Systems (ICS)
Components
Programmable Logic Controller (PLC)
Human Machine Interface (HMI)
Server/Client communication protocol
Network connectivity

5. Sensor/Telemetry Site Growth vs. Time
Background cont.
Sensor/Telemetry Site Growth vs. Time
Source: See references [5]

6. Methodology Open ended methodology Deductive Inductive
General sources/inquires lead to more specifically focused research
Inductive
Specific technological factor leads to hypothesis on general vulnerability
Confirm with research
Synthesis of data – intrusion path analysis

7. Theoretical Intrusion Path

8. Intrusion Path cont. Denial of Service (DoS) scenario
Affects integrity (ability to function correctly and detect error/malicious activity) of system components [4]
Capitalizes on water sector and SCADA weaknesses
Lack of resources for incident detection
Intrinsically archaic network architectures
Complex hacking code and lack of anti-virus software
Un-encrypted communication protocol, MODBUS for example

9. Risk Mitigation Technical: Process/Organizational:
Multi-Factor Authentication
Virus protection software/intrusion detection
Transaction logging (MODBUS) [2]
Network segmentation
Process/Organizational:
Maintain IT staff
Risk mitigation goals
Performance metrics [5]
Response/disaster recovery plan [3]

10. Example of simple network segmentation architecture
Risk Mitigation cont.
Example of simple network segmentation architecture

11. Conclusion Why is this important?
Water industry designed without security as a primary concern
Technological advances put sector even more at risk
An attack could endanger public health
Inhibit primary industrial functions that required water
Upgrading to adequate security is a large task
Time, Money, Manpower
Constant quality control

12. Questions
Questions?
Thank you!

13. References
[1] C. Copeland and B. Cody, “Terrorism and Security Issues Facing the Water Infrastructure Sector,” Congr. Res. Serv. Rep., pp. 1–6, 2010.
[2] E. J. Byres, M. Franz, and D. Miller, “The Use of Attack Trees in Assessing Vulnerabilities in SCADA Systems.”
[3] S. Panguluri, W. Phillips, and P. Ellis, “Cyber Security: Protecting Water and Wastewater Infrastructure,” Handb. Water Wastewater Syst. Prot., pp. 285–318,
[4] S. Amin, X. Litrico, S. Sastry, and A. M. Bayen, “Cyber Security of Water SCADA Systems—Part I: Analysis and Experimentation of Stealthy Deception Attacks,” pp. 1–8,
[5] Water Sector Coordinating Council Cyber Security Working Group, “Roadmap to Secure Control Systems in the Water Sector,” pp.5–37, 2008.