Biblio

Modbus TCP/IP protocol is a commonly used protocol in industrial automation control systems, systems responsible for sensitive operations such as gas turbine operation and refinery control. The protocol was designed decades ago with no security features in mind. Denial of service attack and malicious parameter command injection are examples of attacks that can exploit vulnerabilities in industrial control systems that use Modbus/TCP protocol. This paper discusses and explores the use of intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) with deep packet inspection (DPI) capabilities and DPI industrial firewalls that have capability to detect and stop highly specialized attacks hidden deep in the communication flow. The paper has the following objectives: (i) to develop signatures for IDPS for common attacks on Modbus/TCP based network architectures; (ii) to evaluate performance of three IDPS - Snort, Suricata and Bro - in detecting and preventing common attacks on Modbus/TCP based control systems; and (iii) to illustrate and emphasize that the IDPS and industrial firewalls with DPI capabilities are not preventing but only mitigating likelihood of exploitation of Modbus/TCP vulnerabilities in the industrial and automation control systems. The results presented in the paper illustrate that it might be challenging task to achieve requirements on real-time communication in some industrial and automation control systems in case the DPI is implemented because of the latency and jitter introduced by these IDPS and DPI industrial firewall.

WebRTC is one of the latest additions to the ever growing repository of Web browser technologies, which push the envelope of native Web application capabilities. WebRTC allows real-time peer-to-peer audio and video chat, that runs purely in the browser. Unlike existing video chat solutions, such as Skype, that operate in a closed identity ecosystem, WebRTC was designed to be highly flexible, especially in the domains of signaling and identity federation. This flexibility, however, opens avenues for identity fraud. In this paper, we explore the technical underpinnings of WebRTC's identity management architecture. Based on this analysis, we identify three novel attacks against endpoint authenticity. To answer the identified threats, we propose and discuss defensive strategies, including security improvements for the WebRTC specifications and mitigation techniques for the identity and service providers.