Development of an Attack-Resistant and Secure SCADA System using WSN, MANET, and Internet

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are open to security attacks when they are integrated with IT systems and wireless technologies for enhanced processing and remote control. These Critical Infrastructures (CIs) are highly important as they provide service for an entire nation and causes serious danger even when interrupted for a while. Some of the common SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems involve energy and water distribution systems. In this paper, the energy distribution SCADA system comprising several substations is considered. A secure framework is proposed that combines the energy control system with Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs), and the Internet, providing anomaly prevention and status management. SCADA attacks occur at the state estimators of the power systems which are used to route power flows and detect faulty devices. These estimators are located in the SCADA control center which is a sensitive area and measurements must be transmitted over a secure communication channel. The attack-resistance of the SCADA system is enhanced by increasing the hardness and complexity of the attack problem. The Attack-Resistant and Secure (ARS) SCADA system is evaluated against existing techniques like NAMDIA (Network-Aware Mitigation of Data Integrity Attacks), Retrofit IDS (Intrusion Detection System), and CSBF (Critical State-Based Filtering) for enhancing the attack-resistance and security of SCADA systems. It is found that the performance of ARS SCADA system is good compared to the existing methods in terms of maximum normalized attack impact and latency.