Threat Assessment Model in Electrical Power Grid Environment

Abstract

At the heart of every critical national infrastructure, there is a SCADA system. The wide range of supported applications has made this life-saving management system the key element of every industrial control infrastructure in various sectors. The complexity and sophistication of SCADA systems have been increased dramatically over the last few years. Various cyberattacks have targeted these systems by exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities or targeting a nearby Internet-enabled appliance or computer system. To this end, many efforts have been proposed previously to model the threats on SCADA systems to eliminate potential danger and diminish the catastrophic consequences in the physical domain. The main contribution of this work is to present a multi-facets threat assessment model to aid security teams to systematically perform various cybersecurity analysis practices such as penetration testing, vulnerability assessment and risk analysis.