An intrusion detection system for wireless process control systems

A recent trend in the process control system (PCS) is to deploy sensor networks in hard-to-reach areas. Using wireless sensors greatly decreases the wiring costs and increases the volume of data gathered for plant monitoring. However, ensuring the security of the deployed sensor network, which is part of the overall security of PCS, is of crucial importance. In this paper, we design a model-based intrusion detection system (IDS) for sensor networks used for PCS. Given that PCS tends to have regular traffic patterns and a well-defined request-response communication, we can design an IDS that models normal behavior of the entities and detects attacks when there is a deviation from this model. Model-based IDS can prove useful in detecting unknown attacks.