Authenticated Modbus Protocol for Critical Infrastructure Protection

Protecting a nation's critical infrastructure, notably its power grid is crucial in view of increasing threats, such as international terrorism. We focus on the security of the Modbus protocol, a de-facto protocol for distributed control systems popularly used for power plants. Specifically, we analyze the security of a recently proposed authenticated Modbus protocol. We present attacks on the protocol, discuss reasons behind these phenomena, and motivate how these problems can be addressed.