Cyber Security: Protecting our Networks and Critical Infrastructure

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Cyber SecurityProtecting our Networks and
Critical Infrastructure

• Carl A. Gunter
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• On behalf of the
• American Association for the Advancement of
  Science

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Cyber Security Threats

• Established threats
• Vandals, publicity attacks
• Emerging threats
• Deep and accelerating reliance on networked
  computers globally
• Exploitation of these for illegitimate financial
  gain
• Exploitation of these for hostile political gain

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How Vulnerable Are We?

• The government, industry, and citizenry of the US
  and its allies are unacceptably vulnerable to old
  and new cyber security threats.
• Many of our key IT systems were not designed with
  security as a core objective.
• The Internet
• Personal computers
• SCADA and control systems

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Blocking Attacks

• Requirements

• In This Talk

• Legacy systems must be protected behind
  perimeters or retro-fitted with security
  improvements
• New systems can be designed with security as a
  core goal

• Give some examples of the next generation of IT
  applications for which adequate cyber security is
  a barrier
• Discuss strategies for secure and convenient IT
  solutions in the future

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Outline of Topics

• Health care
• Assisted living
• Medical messaging
• Control systems
• Control systems on enterprise networks
• Networked electrical meters

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Assisted Living

• Drivers

• Enablers and Challenges

• Rising number of elderly, desire for independent
  living
• Increasing cost for treatment of chronic
  conditions
• New payment approaches (viz. Medicare episodic
  payments)

• Enablers
• Cheaper medical devices
• Improved digital networking for homes
• Assisted living concept networked collection of
  health information from people in their homes
• Security and privacy are key challenges

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Assisted Living Service Provider (ALSP)

• ASLP provides independent monitoring of health
  vitals
• Aids clinicians and assisted persons with IT
  support
• Challenges
• Security with ease of use
• Regulations FDA, HIPAA
• Common carrier status

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Medical Messaging

• Email is very convenient but has many security
  challenges spam, phishing, viruses,
• Greater structure is needed to assure the privacy
  and security required for medical messaging

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Next Generation Messaging

• Messaging systems are adapting to practical
  conditions and advances in distributed computing
• Examples
• Mail related to financial services
• CDC Health Alert Network standards
• Possible future messaging based on emerging
  Business to Business (B2B) web communication
  protocols

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Control Systems on Enterprise Networks

• Control systems are replacing electro-mechanical
  devices with networked computers
• Improved flexibility, reduced cost
• In power substations Intelligent Electronic
  Devices (IEDs) are placed on a Supervisory
  Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) network

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Networked Computers in Aircraft

• Current design isolates aircraft and provides two
  semi-isolated subsystems, one for control and one
  for entertainment
• Next generation will link entertainment network
  to Internet
• Future link the control system to the enterprise
  network.

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Generations of Networked Computers in Aircraft
No Computers
No Computers
Computer Control
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Tradeoffs in Security and Performance

• Benefits
• Monitor airline health
• Update onboard information
• Update parts
• Drawbacks
• Enterprise network is typically attached to the
  Internet so attack expose is potentially
  increased
• There are design issues about connecting devices
  that work in real-time to the Internet

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Networked Computers in Power Substations
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Power Substation Comm (Under Development)
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Secure IEDs (SIEDs)

• A SIED is an IED that has sufficient security
  capabilities to be on the Internet
• Some (most?) IEDs currently produced are designed
  to handle some exposure
• Many experts fear this exposure advocate
  isolating IEDs or hiding them behind a perimeter
• This latter approach has many drawbacks
• Sacrifices potential defense in depth
• Mediated access increases complexity
• Access control decisions complicated
• SIEDs provide greatest defense and flexibility

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Networked Electrical Meters

• Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI)
• Reduced costs
• Better control
• New applications

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Partial threat model

• Unethical customer
• May attempt to modify metering messages to steal
  service
• Has legitimate physical access to meter, could
  modify it
• Overly-intrusive MDMA
• Could use high-resolution metering data to
  determine behavior of metered residents
• Publicity seeker
• Cracker or virus author seeking physical
  disruption to garner publicity

Hart, 1989 Residential energy monitoring and
computerized surveillance via utility power flows
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Secure Meter Architecture
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Meters for Emergency Response?

• After Katrina, surveillance camera mesh was the
  only network infrastructure to survive
• It was re-tasked to carry municipal
  communications
• AMI based on mesh networks will soon be widely
  deployed
• Is it possible to re-task these for emergency
  response if they are needed?
• Security challenges to re-tasking...

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911 Meter Prototype
Meter
Rescuer
Hub
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Conclusions

• With new applications we have the opportunity and
  responsibility to provide better protections for
  security and privacy
• There are applications that will save money and
  lives while providing valuable new services if
  security can be assured
• For more on applications discussed here visit
  Illinois Security Lab (seclab.uiuc.edu)