2018

Factories, chemical plants, automobiles, and aircraft have come to be described today as cyber-physical systems of systems--distinct systems connected to form a larger and more complex system. For many such systems, correct operation is critical to safety, making their security of paramount importance. Unfortunately, because of their heterogeneous nature and special purpose, it is very difficult to determine whether a malicious attacker can make them behave in a manner that causes harm. This type of security analysis is an essential step in building and certifying secure systems.

Abstract: In this paper, we present two web-based attacks against local IoT devices that any malicious web page or third-party script can perform, even when the devices are behind NATs. In our attack scenario, a victim visits the attacker's website, which contains a malicious script that communicates with IoT devices on the local network that have open HTTP servers. We show how the malicious script can circumvent the same-origin policy by exploiting error messages on an HTML5 interface or by carrying out DNS rebinding attacks.

The goal of the project is to develop techniques that will allow detection and correction of relay misoperations in electric grids. The work from NDSU in (2017-2018): 1) advanced the concept of energy function traces to detect disturbance events in power systems including: temporary and permanent line faults, load loss and excitation failures 2) developed SVD/PCA methods to determine the sensitivity and accuracy of energy-based methods.

Power system blackouts occur due to system-wide instability brought forth through a combination of dynamic events. Due to availability of system-wide synchrophasor data, it has become possible to conceive and apply real-time protection and control schemes that detect causes and symptoms of instabilities, and respond to arrest the progression of blackouts. However, detailed dynamic data from an actual blackout would be desirable for validation of such schemes. This poster describes the process of dynamically simulating the September 8, 2011 blackout in the Southwestern United States.

The nation's critical infrastructures are increasingly dependent on systems that use computers to control vital physical components. Imagine if you lose electric power, your water stops flowing, airplanes stop flying, medical devices stop working, and chemical plants explode. These are all examples of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) that are vulnerable to attack through their computer systems, through their physical properties such as power flow, water flow, chemistry, etc., or through both.