The Use of Attack Trees in Assessing Vulnerabilities in SCADA System

E.J. Byres, M. Franz and D. Miller ; "The Use of Attack Trees in Assessing Vulnerabilities in SCADA Systems", International Infrastructure Survivability Workshop (IISW'04), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Lisbon, December 4, 2004

Abstract:  Protocol standards, particularly those in the controls and power industry, have traditionally been designed to address a specific application with little regard for security in their design or specification. At best, there has been only passing concern for security issues that may arise in deployment; at worst, protocol designers assume a closed (and therefore secure) environment, which, in many cases, no longer exists. Where security has been a consideration, there has been no clear methodology to assess the security risks in the protocol specification. This paper describes the application of attack tree methodology to the common SCADA protocol MODBUS/TCP with the goal of identifying security vulnerabilities inherent in the specification and in typical deployments.

The Use of Attack Trees in Assessing Vulnerabilities in SCADA Systems - White Paper (272kb)