Engineering topics

Rivera, Abel Gomez

Publications and source records attributed to Rivera, Abel Gomez.

3 records

DOE OSTI2023

Towards 5G-Enabled Operational Technology for Process Monitoring and Network Slicing

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are deployed to monitor physical processes in critical cyber-enabled services like power generation. However, CPS ecosystems are typically designed without robust security. While it is important to ensure optimal performance of the Operational Technology (OT) environments, security cannot be overlooked. To modernize traditional OT services, 5G technology is being integrated. 5G technology offers low latency and high availability, making it a suitable infrastructure for managing and monitoring physical processes. How-ever, integrating 5G mechanisms into large-scale OT networks introduces new implementation and performance challenges. Therefore, this paper presents a 5G-enabled CPS architecture (5G-CPS) that describes the necessary components, services, and communication protocols and conducts feasibility study to integrate 5G technology in industrial control system networks to understand the performance merits. The 5G-CPS architecture aims to minimize implementation and operational challenges associated with integrating 5G technology into constrained OT.

Aguayo, Jared M.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Integrating 5G Technology for Improved Process Monitoring and Network Slicing in ICS

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are crucial for monitoring physical processes that support essential cyber-enabled services like power generation. The use of proprietary communication and lack of effective intrusion detection mechanisms pose constraints for efficient operation. Therefore, there is a need to modernize these systems with decentralized technologies like Edge Computing and 5G. However, integrating 5G and Edge Computing into large-scale ICS networks presents implementation and performance challenges. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an integrated ICS architecture that combines 5G and Edge Computing technologies with traditional ICS protocols. The objective is to minimize implementation and operational difficulties while improving the monitoring of physical processes and enabling robust intrusion detection. The proposed architecture outlines the necessary components, services, and communication protocols required for the integration of 5G and Edge Computing.

Aguayo, Jared M.↗

DOE OSTI2021

Achieving Runtime State Verification Assurance in Critical Cyber-Physical Infrastructures

Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS) are an essential backbone of national critical infrastructures. They help monitor and control crucial cyber-enabled services such as energy generation. Commonly ICPS monitors the physical process through Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. The SCADA ecosystem takes critical real-time and future system operational decisions based on the runtime state behavior of field sensors. Traditional SCADA systems use legacy and insecure communication protocols such as the Modbus protocol that lack adequate security mechanisms to provide robust runtime state behavior assurance of constrained field sensors. Therefore, constrained field sensors are commonly vulnerable to standard semantic attacks that gradually change the behavior state of infected devices. This paper discusses process integrity assurance techniques necessary to enhance the security of behavior-based protocols such as the Modbus protocol. The Runtime State Verification (RSV) protocol proposed in this paper aims to address semantic attacks in the SCADA ecosystem by integrating behavior-based Mandatory Results Automata (MRA) and a Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) network. The RSV protocol provides high process integrity assurance through enhanced behavior-based MRA suitable for the constrained field devices. A proof of concept of the RSV protocol has been evaluated in an emulated water-tube boiler. Preliminary evaluations of the RSV protocol aimed to measure the efficiency of the proposed protocol by monitoring an Combustion Efficiency (CE) process necessary to preserve optimal combustion, thus minimizing costs and future maintenance of water-tube boilers. We analyze the overall network overhead and latency of the proposed RSV protocol by evaluating the HLF network performance and comparing the proposed RSV protocol with the state-ofart BloSPAI protocol. Through the preliminary evaluations of the proposed RSV protocol, this paper demonstrates that the proposed RSV protocol overcomes the shortcomings and network overhead of the BloSPAI protocol by integrating behavior-based authentication through novel MRAs and HLF networks.

Rivera, Abel Gomez↗