Building an Open Source Operational Technology Pentesting Platform: Lessons from LINICS

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and release of LINICS, an open-source platform designed for pentesting and security analysis of Operational Technology systems, filling a gap in available tools.

Contribution

It introduces LINICS, the first open-source platform specifically for OT pentesting, along with lessons learned during its architecture and deployment.

Findings

LINICS provides a dedicated tool for OT security testing.

The platform addresses a gap in open-source OT security tools.

Lessons learned can guide future OT security platform development.

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) security professionals have ready access to open-source platforms such as Kali Linux. But no such platform exists for Operational Technology (OT) that underpins Industrial Control Systems. We discuss experiences of architecting, building and releasing LINICS, an open-source platform for OT pentesting and security analysis.