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APT attacks on industrial control systems: A tale of three incidents

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  • Kumar, Rajesh
  • Kela, Rohan
  • Singh, Siddhant
  • Trujillo-Rasua, Rolando

Abstract

Modern-day industries are complex socio-technical entities. Understanding the risks associated with the operation of such systems requires proper consideration of budget constraints, security expertise and evaluating the effects of legacy services. A relatively newer and unorthodox form of cyber-attacks against such systems are Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). APTs are resourceful and strategic, aiming at maximum damage by stalling critical services and stealing sensitive information. In this article, we demonstrate how attack trees can be used as a common language to model APT attacks in a practitioner-friendly manner. We do so by modelling three prominent APT attacks, namely Stuxnet, Blackenergy and Triton. Each attack is described in a systematic and structured way following the attack tree modelling language. We show that, because attack trees are compositional models, one can reuse them to model other complex attack scenarios. We illustrate this compositional feature by modelling attacks on an industrial oil-pipeline.

Suggested Citation

  • Kumar, Rajesh & Kela, Rohan & Singh, Siddhant & Trujillo-Rasua, Rolando, 2022. "APT attacks on industrial control systems: A tale of three incidents," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ijocip:v:37:y:2022:i:c:s1874548222000129
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcip.2022.100521
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Boldizsár Bencsáth & Gábor Pék & Levente Buttyán & Márk Félegyházi, 2012. "The Cousins of Stuxnet: Duqu, Flame, and Gauss," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-33, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Mohd Nor Akmal Khalid & Amjed Ahmed Al-Kadhimi & Manmeet Mahinderjit Singh, 2023. "Recent Developments in Game-Theory Approaches for the Detection and Defense against Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): A Systematic Review," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-34, March.

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    2. Mohd Nor Akmal Khalid & Amjed Ahmed Al-Kadhimi & Manmeet Mahinderjit Singh, 2023. "Recent Developments in Game-Theory Approaches for the Detection and Defense against Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): A Systematic Review," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-34, March.

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