Communication Settings. ABB MicroSCADA

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9. If a mail server with a secured TLS protocol is used, write “-o tls=yes” at the end of the whole command.

Now the command should be looking something like this: “C:\sc\temp\sendemail

-f [email protected] -t [email protected] -u Subject -m Message -a file.zip -s smtp.mail.com:123 -xu username -xp password -o tls=yes”. This command sends an e-mail with an attachment “file.zip” from an address “[email protected]” to an address “[email protected]”. The subject of the e-mail is “Subject” and the message is “Message”. The address of the SMTP server is “smtp.mail.com:123” and it uses TLS protocol. The username and password for the server are

“username” and “password”.

6.3 Communication Settings

Using e-mail requires access to an external SMTP server. An existing corporate e-mail server could be used or an SMTP server on the Internet, like Google Gmail used in this thesis. The Windows Server operating system also has an SMTP server included as a part on the Internet Information Services (IIS) feature. IIS can be turned on from the IIS Manager, which is accessed by typing “inetmgr” to the

Windows Run dialog box or from the administrative tools in the control panel.

6.4 Security Threats

E-mail is a relatively secure way to send important material, at least if it is sent through a private server. In theory, it is possible that third parties could read or even modify the content during the transit time from sender to recipient, when the e-mail passes through many routers and mail servers. But in reality, the biggest threat is most likely lost or stolen hardware containing offline e-mails. In this case, it is unlikely that anyone even has interest in the e-mails, because they contain information that is only important in the maintenance work. Of course the reports include also information about the system’s hardware and operating system that could be valuable if someone is planning on cyber-attack towards the

SCADA system. /4/

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Using e-mail naturally requires that the system is somehow connected to the

Internet. This creates a lot of security risks, even though the connection is made through an internal industrial network. Security in an industrial network can be compromised in many places along the system. When a SCADA computer is logging data out to some back-office database, it must be on the same physical network as the back-end database systems. This means that there is a path to the

SCADA system and also to the end devices through corporate network. If a corporate network is compromised, then any IP based device can be accessed.

These connections provide an opportunity to attack the SCADA system with multiple attacks that includes Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, deleting of the system files on the SCADA server, planting a Trojan or a keylogger and using the

SCADA server as a launching point to other system components within the network. /9/

Security strategy in a corporate network should of course be developed even though there is no SCADA system, but there are specific steps to protect any

SCADA system. These steps are for example properly configured SCADA firewalls, using of smart switches to segment SCADA networks off into their own

IP segments, securing the operating system with user policies, using of anti-virus softwares also on the SCADA computers and using SCADA policies with password protection. /9/

As it was explained earlier in Chapter 5.1, the Group Policy Settings of the server computer are set very restricted for every user. However, creating a report using the application example introduced in this thesis requires that the user logged on the computer has privileges to run third party software. This may cause a security risk, because the operator user should not have any privileges to run own programs. Running the programs can be executed securely by enabling “Run only allowed applications” from the Group Policy Settings. When this option is enabled, approved programs can be chosen. Vice versa, launching specific programs can be blocked so that the user will only get an error message when an unwanted program is attempted to launch.