LICSTER – A Low-cost ICS Security Testbed for Education and Research
Open accessAbstract
Unnoticed by most people, Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) control entire productions and critical infrastructures such as water distribution, smart grid and automotive manufacturing. Due to the ongoing digitalization, these systems are becoming more and more connected in order to enable remote control and monitoring. However, this shift bears significant risks, namely a larger attack surface, which can be exploited by attackers. In order to make these systems more secure, it takes research, which is, however, difficult to conduct on productive systems, since these often have to operate twenty-four-seven. Testbeds are mostly very expensive or based on simulation with no real-world physical process. In this paper, we introduce LICSTER, an open-source low-cost ICS testbed, which enables researchers and students to get hands-on experience with industrial security for about 500 Euro. We provide all necessary material to quickly start ICS hacking, with the focus on low-cost and open-source for education and research.
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VSSCADA demonstrated their approach by simulating real-world critical infrastructures.
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- Authors
- Sauer, F., Niedermaier, M., Kießling, S., & Merli, D.
- Affiliations
- Technische Hochschule Augsburg (DE)
- Venue
- Electronic Workshops in Computing
- Publisher
- BCS Learning & Development
- Published
- 2019
- ISSN
- 1477-9358 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2975610256
- Cited by
- 29
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 2
- FWCI
- 5.03
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Electronic workshops in computing (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Smart Grid Security and Resilience
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Industrial Automation and Control Systems
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information and Cyber Security
- Keywords
- industrial control systems, ICS security, security testbed, low-cost hardware, open-source hardware, critical infrastructure
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