Benchmarking vulnerability assessment tools for enhanced cyber-physical system (CPS) Resiliency

Emma McMahon, Mark Patton, Sagar Samtani, Hsinchun Chen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are engineered systems seamlessly integrating computational algorithms and physical components. CPS advances offer numerous benefits to domains such as health, transportation, smart homes and manufacturing. Despite these advances, the overall cybersecurity posture of CPS devices remains unclear. In this paper, we provide knowledge on how to improve CPS resiliency by evaluating and comparing the accuracy, and scalability of two popular vulnerability assessment tools, Nessus and OpenVAS. Accuracy and suitability are evaluated with a diverse sample of pre-defined vulnerabilities in Industrial Control Systems (ICS), smart cars, smart home devices, and a smart water system. Scalability is evaluated using a large-scale vulnerability assessment of 1,000 Internet accessible CPS devices found on Shodan, the search engine for the Internet of Things (IoT). Assessment results indicate several CPS devices from major vendors suffer from critical vulnerabilities such as unsupported operating systems, OpenSSH vulnerabilities allowing unauthorized information disclosure, and PHP vulnerabilities susceptible to denial of service attacks.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2018 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2018
EditorsDongwon Lee, Ghita Mezzour, Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, Nitesh Saxena
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages100-105
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781538678480
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 24 2018
Event16th IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2018 - Miami, United States
Duration: Nov 9 2018Nov 11 2018

Publication series

Name2018 IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2018

Other

Other16th IEEE International Conference on Intelligence and Security Informatics, ISI 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityMiami
Period11/9/1811/11/18

Keywords

  • Cybersecurity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems and Management
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Communication

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