Identifying and Anticipating Cyber Attacks that Could Cause Physical Damage to Industrial Control Systems

Physical control systems are increasingly controlled by reconfigurable, network-enabled devices to increase flexibility and ease commissioning and maintenance. Such capability creates vulnerabilities. Devices may be remotely reprogrammed by a malicious actor to act in unintended ways, causing physical damage to mechanical equipment, infrastructure, and life and limb. In this paper, past examples of actual damage to cyberphysical systems are shown, threats posed by software-controlled Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) are analyzed, and a small-scale version of an attack on ubiquitous VFD equipment is demonstrated.