ICSFlux: Using Physics to Uncover Cyberthreats

The factories, water utilities, and power systems that keep daily life running rest on the assumption that as long as no one breaks into the computers that run the equipment, the equipment stays safe.

Logically this makes sense and has been backed up by past security research. However, researchers at Georgia Tech have found hidden paths in cyber-physical systems that attackers can use to disrupt or even destroy them.

To find these hidden paths before an attacker does, the researchers built a testing tool called ICSFlux. This new tool leans on the physics used by the industrial process and maps out the system to find new threats that were once thought impossible.

ICSFlux was deployed across 11 different programmable logic controllers in six industrial sectors, including chemical manufacturing, water treatment, power grids, aircraft, desalination, and waste processing. The process uncovered twenty genuine safety violations.