Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

12-2021

Abstract

Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) play a critical role in many industrial control systems, yet face increasingly serious cyber threats. In this paper, we propose a novel PLC-compatible software-based defense mechanism, called Heterogeneous Redundant Proactive Defense Framework (HRPDF). We propose a heterogeneous PLC architecture in HRPDF, including multiple heterogeneous, equivalent, and synchronous runtimes, which can thwart multiple types of attacks against PLC without the need of external devices. To ensure the availability of PLC, we also design an inter-process communication algorithm that minimizes the overhead of HRPDF. We implement a prototype system of HRPDF and test it in a real-world PLC and an OpenPLC-based device, respectively. The results show that HRPDF can defend against multiple types of attacks with 10.22% additional CPU and 5.56% additional memory overhead, and about 0.6 ms additional time overhead.

Keywords

heterogeneous redundant architecture, industrial control system, proactive defense, programmable logic controller

Discipline

Information Security | Software Engineering

Research Areas

Software and Cyber-Physical Systems

Publication

Journal of Computer Science and Technology

Volume

36

Issue

6

First Page

1307

Last Page

1324

ISSN

1000-9000

Identifier

10.1007/s11390-021-1647-7

Publisher

Springer Verlag (Germany)

Copyright Owner and License

Authors

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-021-1647-7

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