Securing Remote Access Networks Using Malware Detection Tools for Industrial Control Systems

摘要

With their role as an integral part of its infrastructure, Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are a vital part of every nation's industrial development drive. Despite several significant advancements - such as controlled-environment agriculture, automated train systems, and smart homes, achieved in critical infrastructure sectors through the integration of Information Systems (IS) and remote capabilities with ICS, the fact remains that these advancements have introduced vulnerabilities that were previously either nonexistent or negligible, one being Remote Access Trojans (RATs). Present RAT detection methods either focus on monitoring network traffic or studying event logs on host systems. This research's objective is the detection of RATs by comparing actual utilized system capacity to reported utilized system capacity. To achieve the research objective, open-source RAT detection methods were identified and analyzed, a GAP-analysis approach was used to identify the deficiencies of each method, after which control algorithms were developed into source code for the solution.