Evaluation of secure peer-to-peer overlay routing for survivable SCADA systems

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems gather and analyze data for real-time control. SCADA systems are used extensively, in applications such as electrical power distribution, telecommunications, and energy refining. SCADA systems are obvious targets for cyber-attacks that would seek to disrupt the physical complexities governed by a SCADA system. This paper uses a discrete-event simulation to begin to investigate the characteristics of one potential means of hardening SCADA systems against a cyber-attack. When it appears that real-time message delivery constraints are hot being met (due, for example, to a denial of service attack), a peer-to-peer overlay network is used to route message floods in an effort to ensure delivery. The SCADA system, and peer-to-peer nodes all use strong hardware-based authentication techniques to prevent injection of false data or commands, and to harden the routing overlay. Our simulations help to quantify the anticipated tradeoffs of message survivability and latency minimization.