A Survey of Security in SCADA Networks: Current Issues and Future Challenges
Open accessAbstract
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are used for monitoring industrial devices. However, their security faces the threat of being compromised due to the increasing use of open access networks. The primary objective of this survey paper is to provide a comparative study of the on-going security research in SCADA systems. The paper provides a classification of attacks based on security requirements and network protocol layers. To secure the communication between nodes of SCADA networks, various security standards have been developed by different organizations. We conduct a study of the security standards developed for SCADA networks along with their vulnerabilities. Researchers have proposed various security schemes to overcome the weaknesses of SCADA standards. The paper organizes security schemes based on current standards, detection, and prevention of attacks. It also addresses the future challenges that SCADA networks may face, in particular, from quantum attacks. Furthermore, it outlines directions for further research in the field.
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Multiple surveys, reviews and systematic literature overviews have been published covering the domain of security within I4.0, CPS, ICS, SCADA systems and the manufacturing industry in general, providing insight into security risks, taxonomy of attacks, security standards, intrusion detection systems, attack vectors, and quantitative evaluation of vulnerabilities.
“As a result, multiple surveys, reviews and systematic literature overviews have been published covering the domain of security within I4.0, CPS, ICS, SCADA systems and the manufacturing industry in general, providing insight into the security risks and implementation of digital security measures in these environments [169], taxonomy of attacks [173], [174] and security standards developed for SCAD”
From SCADA Systems With Focus on Continuous Manufacturing and Steel Industry: A Survey on Architectures, Standards, Challenges and Industry 5.0 (2022) · cites this paper as [173]
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredExisting methods for SCADA/ICS security are more available for detection of attacks than for prevention of attacks.
“e authors highlighted that those methods for detection of attacks are more available than methods for prevention of attacks in literature.”
From Detection and Blocking of Replay, False Command, and False Access Injection Commands in SCADA Systems with Modbus Protocol (2021) · cites this paper as [28]
Section VI, “Existing SCADA Security Schemes,” and Section IX, “Conclusion,” classify schemes into attack detection and prevention, but neither says detection methods are more numerous or more available in the literature. Searches for a comparison of the two categories did not find one in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.73)
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- [74]74. SRINIVAS SAMPALLI received the B.E. degree from Bangalore University and the Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Ben- galuru, India. He is currently a Professor and a 3M National Teaching Fellow with the Fac- ulty of Computer Science, Dalhousie Univer- sity, Halifax, NS, Canada. He has led numerous industry-driven research projects on the Internet of Things, wireless security, vulnerability analy- sis, intrusion detection and prevention, and appli- cations of emerging wireless technologies in healthcare. He currently supervises five Ph.D. and ten master's students in his EMerging WIreless Technologies (MYTech) Laboratory and has supervised over 120 graduate students in his career. His primary joy is in inspiring and motivating students with his teaching and research. He received the Dalhousie Faculty of Science Teaching Excellence Award, the Dalhousie Alumni Association Teaching Award, the Association of Atlantic Universities' Distinguished Teacher Award, a teaching award instituted in his name by the students within his faculty, the Atlantic Canada Section IEEE Outstanding Educator Award, and the 3M National Teaching Fellowship, Canada's most prestigious teaching acknowledgement. Since September 2016, he has been holding the honorary position of the Vice President (Canada) of the International Federation of National Teaching Fellows (IFNTF), a consortium of national teaching award winners from around the world.
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- Authors
- Ghosh, S., & Sampalli, S.
- Affiliations
- Dalhousie University (CA)
- Venue
- IEEE Access
- Published
- 2019
- Volume
- 7
- Pages
- 135812-135831
- ISSN
- 2169-3536 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2955810727
- Cited by
- 154
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 32 · 2020: 13
- FWCI
- 10.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- IEEE Access (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Smart Grid Security and Resilience
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Network Security and Intrusion Detection
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Industrial Automation and Control Systems
- Keywords
- SCADA security, industrial control systems, attack classification, security standards, vulnerability (computer security), security schemes, attack detection, attack prevention, quantum attacks, open-access.network
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