Fadi Obeid and Philippe Dhaussy, Ensta Bretagne, France

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems have their own constrains and specifications. These systems control many of our critical industrial infrastructures, yet they are hardly secured. The biggest problem in securing these systems is the lack of cryptography support especially that most SCADA systems work in real-time which is not compatible with most cryptography algorithms. Additionally, a SCADA network may include a huge amount of embedded devices with little computational powers which adds to the cost of any security improvement. In this paper we present a new approach that would secure SCADA communications by coding information without the need of the complex cryptography algorithms. The reconfigurable information transmitter agent (RITA) protocol that we present does not need the already installed devices to be modified nor replaced, it only needs to add costless electrical chips to these devices. This approach can also be used to secure any type of communication that respects the protocol's constraints.

Information Security, Network and Communication Security, SCADA Networks, Cryptography