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Ensuring Secure Communication in Critical Infrastructures

Authors:
Steffen Fries
Rainer Falk

Keywords: critical infrastructure, smart energy grid, industrial automation, Internet of Things, secure communication, security policy, security protocol, Transport Layer Security

Abstract:
Critical infrastructures as backbone of the society and economy are increasingly the target of cyber attacks. These infrastructures have been isolated in the past, but are connected more and more also with external systems to allow for new and combined services. This immediately requires the protection of the communication connections to external sites. Legislation and operation have taken this into account and provide the necessary framework for posing specific communication security requirements. From the technical side, different security counter measures exist to cope with the given requirements, but it has to be ensured that these technical means are not only provided, but in fact applied in operation. This paper describes a new approach to ensure that during the setup of a secure communication connection the appropriate security is effectively negotiated with respect to permissible cipher suites for authentication, message integrity, and confidentiality. The application within a Smart Grid is used as example application domain.

Pages: 15 to 20

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2016

Publication date: June 26, 2016

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-412X

ISBN: 978-1-61208-484-8

Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Dates: from June 26, 2016 to June 30, 2016