Educational Modules in Industrial Control Systems for Critical Infrastructure Cyber Security

The cyber-security of critical infrastructure has gained much attention in recent years due to the effectiveness of such attacks to cause physical harm. Cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, specifically the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) by which critical processes are controlled, affect water, power, critical manufacturing and many other areas vital to society. Therefore, the education of new engineers to mitigate these attacks is also critical. One key problem that has existed for some time is the separation of cyber-security education, in the Computer Information Science (CIS) discipline, from that of ICS education, in the electrical and other engineering disciplines as ICS engineers. This separation results in misunderstanding between CIS and ICS professionals who typically remain divided within the corporate enterprise, which impedes the implementation of cyber-security solutions in critical infrastructure. To address this problem, new educational modules are developed to educate students from both CIS and ICS disciplines in the unique aspects of ICS cyber-security. The modules are designed to be accessible to students of either discipline, which allows this important subject to be included into either curriculum quickly and without the need for developing a new course. The modules explore the unique network protocols and security measures implemented in ICS from the perspective of maintaining reliable process control, including known vulnerabilities and attacks. The modules also explore methodologies for intrusion detection, forensics, and attack mitigation as uniquely applied to ICS. CIS students gain insight into the nature of process control and understanding in how cyber-security policy affects process control. ICS students gain insight of cyber-security concepts, and the importance of these concepts in the corporate enterprise. Finally, a lab scale ICS platform is developed to serve as a cyber-security trainer for students from both disciplines, including sample lab experiments that encourage interdisciplinary cooperation towards achieving the common goal of critical infrastructure cyber-security. In order to assess the impact of these modules on CIS and ICS students, a survey is developed to measure the understanding of the unique aspects of ICS cyber-security both before and after module presentation and lab participation.