Enhancing Security in Industrial Control Systems with SDN/NFV

Vijay Varadharajan, Uday Tupakula, and Kallol Krishna Karmakar's recent publication, Techniques for Enhancing Security in Industrial Control Systems (ACM Trans. Cyber-Phys. Syst., 2024), explores the challenges and solutions for securing Industrial Control Systems (ICS), which are increasingly connected to the Internet for greater efficiency. The paper introduces a software-enabled security architecture that leverages Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) to enhance real-time situational awareness and dynamic decision-making. This architecture, equipped with a Control System Security Application (CSSA), helps protect ICS from specific attacks, such as denial of service, and secures communication from legacy devices lacking built-in security. The research includes a prototype implementation and analysis demonstrating its effectiveness. Read more here.