Title
Protecting Clock Synchronization
Abstract
AbstractNowadays, industrial networks are often used for safety-critical applications with real-time requirements. Such applications usually have a time-triggered nature with message scheduling as a core property. Scheduling requires nodes to share the same notion of time, that is, to be synchronized. Therefore, clock synchronization is a fundamental asset in real-time networks. However, since typical standards for clock synchronization, for example, IEEE 1588, do not provide the required level of security, it raises the question of clock synchronization protection. In this paper, we identify a way to break synchronization based on the IEEE 1588 standard, by conducting a man-in-the-middle MIM attack followed by a delay attack. A MIM attack can be accomplished through, for example, Address Resolution Protocol ARP poisoning. Using the AVISPA tool, we evaluate the potential to perform a delay attack using ARP poisoning and analyze its consequences showing both that the attack can, indeed, break clock synchronization and that some design choices, such as a relaxed synchronization condition mode, delay bounding, and using knowledge of environmental conditions, can make the network more robust/resilient against these kinds of attacks. Lastly, a Configuration Agent is proposed to monitor and detect anomalies introduced by an adversary performing attacks targeting clock synchronization.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1155/2016/6297476
Periodicals
DocType
Volume
Issue
Journal
2016
1
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
2090-0147
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Elena Lisova100.34
Marina Gutiérrez200.34
Wilfried Steiner300.34
Elisabeth Uhlemann426228.17
Johan Åkerberg500.34
Radu Dobrin616922.41
Mats Björkman760.92