Towards Flexible Security Testing of OT Devices

TL;DR

This paper presents a virtualised factory testbed that enables flexible security testing of OT devices, addressing the challenges of testing complex industrial control systems without risking production hardware.

Contribution

It introduces a virtualised factory testbed that allows for controlled, flexible security evaluations of OT devices using real and virtual hardware.

Findings

Enables security testing without risking production hardware

Supports flexible evaluation of security strategies

Facilitates cost-effective security assessments

Abstract

In the factory of the future traditional and formerly isolated Operational Technology (OT) hardware will become connected with all kinds of networks. This leads to more complex security challenges during design, deployment and use of industrial control systems. As it is infeasible to perform security tests on production hardware and it is expensive to build hardware setups dedicated to security testing, virtualised testbeds are gaining interest. We create a testbed based on a virtualised factory which can be controlled by real and virtualised hardware. This allows for a flexible evaluation of security strategies.