Investigation of Internet-of-Things gateway-based solution for protection of industrial control systems

The paper deals with different industrial control system (ICS) cyber threats by investigating simple to implement and effective protection solution. The protection solution is a combination of software (hereinafter referred to as ICS protection platform) applied on off-the-shelf obtainable, by industrial standards certified, Linux-based Internet-of-Things (IoT) gateway hardware. The solution is suitable for deployment in both running and newly planned ICSs, being at the same time easily adaptable i.e. scalable to match industrial workflow demands. Once installed, it can be simply multiplied to provide protection for numerous ICS components. Although real world validation is performed on the ICS which is based on Modbus communication protocol, the investigated solution can be adapted for other industrial communication protocols as well. As it will be concluded based on the recorded results, the proposed solution is highly effective in the new/existing ICSs protection, simultaneously adding an insignificant delay time to the network traffic between client and server devices.