A Study on Mitigation Techniques for SCADA-Driven Cyber-Physical Systems (Position Paper)

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) integrate programmable computing and communication capabilities to traditional physical environments. The use of SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) technologies to build such a new generation of CPSs plays an important role in current critical national-wide infrastructures. SCADA-driven CPSs can be disrupted by cyber-physical attacks, putting at risk human safety, environmental regulation and industrial work. In this paper, we address the aforementioned issues and provide a discussion on the mitigation techniques that aim to optimize the recovery response when a SCADA-driven CPS is under attack. Our discussion paves the way for novel cyber resilience techniques, focusing on the programmable computing and communication capabilities of CPSs, towards new research directions to tolerate cyber-physical attacks.