Russian scientists and Kaspersky Lab improve enterprise cybersecurity

Scientists of the South Ural State University, together with Kaspersky Lab, are launching a scientific and educational project aimed at developing an information security system for the largest metallurgical enterprise in the Chelyabinsk region. The new system will completely eliminate the human factor.

The developed system will ensure the continuity of technological processes and prevent emergency situations at the plant. It will take into account all the features of the metallurgical enterprise. The project will be implemented within two years, and both students and graduates of South Ural State University will take part in it.

“Currently, production is highly automated, and there are a large number of processes that are controlled by industrial controllers. Industrial controllers are interconnected to exchange information in real-time, respectively, there are special requirements for the reliability of information transfer, including ensuring its reliability, completeness, and timeliness. All existing process control systems (automated process control systems) vary greatly in architecture and technology, so the introduction of even specialized information protection tools is difficult or impossible in some cases. Our task is to create a security system for field or production level networks at which industrial controllers "communicate" with each other, as well as with numerous sensors that monitor equipment and all processes. Such a system will prevent equipment breakdown and production shutdown, and, consequently, large financial losses,” says Andrey Barinov, head of the SUSU Information Security department.

The new information security system will be highly accurate and eliminate human error. So, often in production, it becomes impossible for a person to verify each sensor or all equipment. A single sensor may provide incorrect data, and a specialist may not notice an error on time. The information security system itself will control the optimal state of each element involved in the production process.

Thus, the new development of scientists will allow us to analyze data on the production processes of the enterprise, as well as provide information security specialists and process control engineers with information about the detected anomalies. The information security system will also protect the data transmitted in the technological network between the sensors and the control objects from the intervention of intruders (data injection and distortion). Untimely or erroneous data in production leads, at best, to a deterioration in product quality. The worst-case scenario would be a shutdown of production and significant material damage to the enterprise.

Within the framework of the project, the research team will have to identify typical and atypical data exchanges, build a threat model, simulate possible attacks, develop methods for detecting them, etc.

The final product will be an information system for detecting anomalies in industrial networks and methods for detecting them, including a model that simulates an industrial process for testing the system; visualization system for technological processes and their emergency conditions; means of simulating attacks on field-level networks for testing the system.

In addition to the Chelyabinsk tube rolling plant, which is the development customer, the partner of SUSU in the research project will be Kaspersky Lab, an international company specializing in information security technologies and protecting devices from cyber threats. The partner in the educational part of the project will also be the European company ARC Informatique, one of the leaders in the development of software for process control systems.

Viktoria Matveichuk; photo by the author
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