SCADA Worm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

SCADA Worm - Essay Example n facilities ranging from power plants to petroleum refineries, SCADA Worms can rapidly affect large scale industrial computer networks and IT operations. Moreover, SCADA Worms are highly sophisticated and capable of braking through different firewalls. These computer viruses infect Windows based operating systems and server environments, which are one of the most commonly used IT infrastructure equipment in USA. Next, SCADA Worms generally attack the Siemens based IT applications, which are again highly common in most of the US industrial automation and information environments. (Cherry and Langner, 2010; Kline and Krachenfels, 2010) According to most IT experts (e.g. Kim and Solomon, 2010) information security involves seven major domains. These are user domain, workstation domain, LAN domain, LAN-to-WAN domain, remote access domain, WAN domain, and system/application domain. General arrangement of these domains is shown in Figure – 1: Presently, industrial control systems are physically guarded at the workstation domain. User authentication systems and password policies are implemented at user domain. Anti-virus and Firewall software are used at the interface between the workstation domain (e.g. client side computers) and the remote access, LAN, or LAN-to-WAN domains (e.g. server side routers). But reports from Iran, India, and Indonesia show that these arrangements are essential but not enough to stop SCADA Worm (Kline and Krachenfels, 2010). Scientists like Coppolino et al (2012) suggest that Markov model based intrusion detection systems deployed at the system/application domain can be a useful deterrent against the SCADA Worm. The detection system at the industrial control engine must be both undetectable and modifiable. On the other hand, security providers like GarretCom put forward the idea of assimilating security tools from â€Å"a lot of disciplines working together to create industrial environments in a world that is increasingly connected† (Kline