Enhancing the Resilience of Field Devices under Payload Attacks

PI: Mooi Choo Chuah, Lehigh University
Co-PI: Liang Cheng, Lehigh University

Payload attacks (successfully launched by Stuxnet) modify the control programs of intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) in the power grid (i.e., the “payload” for IED firmware), and may cause severe damages to the physical system. This project proposes to embed intelligence into these field devices and detect payload attacks to enhance the resilience of IEDs.

The basic approach is to measure the execution time of the function modules of good firmware as ground truth, and then detect malicious firmware in runtime by comparing the runtime measurement of execution time with the ground truth measurements. It also explores providing basic functions of IEDs in contingency or attacks. The proposed technology can be deployed as one security module of IEDs.