Enhancing SIEM technology to protect critical infrastructures

Abstract

Coordinated and targeted cyber-attacks on Critical Infrastructures (CIs) and Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are increasing and becoming more sophisticated. Typically, SCADA has been designed without having security in mind, which is indeed approached by reusing solutions to protect solely Information Technology (IT) based infrastructures, such as the Security Information and Events Management (SIEM) systems. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), these systems are often ineffective for CIs protection. In this paper we analyze limits of current SIEMs and propose a framework developed in the MASSIF Project to enhance services for data treatment. Particularly, the Generic Event Translation (GET) module collects security data from heterogeneous sources, by providing intelligence at the edge of the SIEM; the Resilient Storage (RS), reliably stores data related to relevant security breaches. We illustrate a prototypal deployment for the dam monitoring and control case study. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.