Packet scheduling attacks on shipboard networked control systems

Shipboard networked control systems are based on a distributed control system architecture that provides remote and local control monitoring. In order to allow the network to scale a hierarchical communication network is composed of highspeed Ethernet based network switches. Ethernet is the prevalent medium to transfer control data, such as control signals, alarm signal, and sensor measurements on the network. However, communication capabilities bring new security vulnerabilities and make communication links a potential target for various kinds of cyber/physical attacks. The goal of this work is to implement and demonstrate a network layer attack against networked control systems, by tampering with temporal characteristics of the network, leading to time varying delays and packet scheduling abnormalities.