Novel Security Mechanism ACRIC Addresses Legacy System Vulnerabilities
/ 4 min read
Quick take - The article discusses the challenges of integrating modern communication technologies into legacy systems, highlighting the introduction of a novel security mechanism called Authenticated Cyclic Redundancy Integrity Check (ACRIC), which aims to enhance security without compromising backward compatibility or requiring additional hardware.
Fast Facts
- The integration of modern communication technologies into legacy systems, like Industrial Control Systems (ICS), poses significant security challenges due to increased interconnectivity and outdated protocols.
- High-profile cyber incidents, such as the 2015 Ukraine power grid attack and the 2021 U.S. water treatment facility compromise, highlight the urgent need for robust message authentication and integrity mechanisms.
- ACRIC (Authenticated Cyclic Redundancy Integrity Check) is a novel security mechanism that enhances message integrity and authentication while maintaining backward compatibility and requiring no additional hardware.
- ACRIC is protocol-agnostic, applicable across various systems, and introduces minimal transmission overhead (less than 1 millisecond), making it suitable for resource-constrained legacy devices.
- The design of ACRIC includes a tailored key distribution process and efficient authentication to ensure secure communication without altering existing message formats or introducing new fields.
Enhancing Security in Legacy Systems with ACRIC
Challenges of Modern Communication Technologies
The integration of modern communication technologies into legacy systems, such as Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and in-vehicle networks, presents significant challenges. These challenges arise from undermining the assumption of isolated and trusted operating environments. Security incidents, such as the 2015 Ukraine power grid attack, have highlighted the risks associated with increased interconnectivity. The 2021 compromise of a U.S. water treatment facility further underscores these risks. These incidents emphasize the necessity of proper message authentication as a primary countermeasure to enhance system security.
Despite the availability of various proposed security solutions in the literature, their adoption has been limited. Challenges include the need to maintain backward compatibility and additional hardware requirements. The constrained computational resources typical of legacy devices also pose a challenge. Many existing security solutions are protocol-specific, leading to complex and costly multiple implementations across heterogeneous systems.
Introduction of ACRIC
To address these issues, a novel security mechanism called Authenticated Cyclic Redundancy Integrity Check (ACRIC) has been introduced. ACRIC utilizes cryptographic computation of the existing Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) field, ensuring both message integrity and authentication. Notably, ACRIC maintains backward compatibility without requiring additional hardware. It is protocol-agnostic, making it applicable across various systems and legacy network protocols. Experimental results indicate that ACRIC provides robust security with minimal transmission overhead, recorded at less than 1 millisecond.
Securing legacy systems remains a critical challenge in modern cybersecurity. These systems encompass ICS, SCADA, transportation networks, air traffic control systems, and in-vehicle networks. Legacy systems often rely on outdated network protocols and resource-constrained hardware, lacking essential security features and rendering them susceptible to cyberattacks. High-profile cyber incidents underscore the severe risks posed by vulnerabilities in legacy systems, including significant economic damage and threats to national and public safety.
ACRIC’s Design and Implementation
A prevalent vulnerability in many of these systems is the absence of robust authentication and integrity mechanisms, crucial for preventing unauthorized access and ensuring data integrity. Although secure variants of legacy protocols have been proposed, upgrading legacy infrastructure is often impractical due to financial constraints, the necessity for continuous operation, and compatibility issues. Research has predominantly focused on retrofitting security into legacy protocols; however, proposed solutions have seen limited industrial adoption due to their narrow focus and limited deployability.
Key challenges in retrofitting security features in resource-constrained environments include ensuring interoperability, maintaining data throughput, and minimizing computational overhead. ACRIC addresses these challenges by providing a universal, adaptable solution. The design goals for ACRIC include ensuring backward compatibility, preserving data payload size, implementing an efficient key agreement procedure, and supporting real-time response.
ACRIC employs a secret CRC initialization vector and one-time pad (OTP) encryption to bolster security without altering message formats or introducing new fields. The paper outlining ACRIC describes the system and threat models, specifically focusing on legacy systems with resource-constrained devices that utilize non-secure protocols incorporating a CRC field. The threat model assumes a well-resourced attacker with complete access to the communication network, capable of intercepting, modifying, and injecting messages.
ACRIC’s design incorporates a tailored key distribution process for system initialization, ensuring secure communication among devices. The authentication process in ACRIC is designed to minimize runtime computational and transmission overhead, providing robust security while maintaining real-time performance. Performance evaluations reveal that ACRIC introduces negligible transmission overhead and completes initialization procedures in under one second. The paper concludes that ACRIC effectively meets identified security and operational goals, positioning it as a practical solution for enhancing security in legacy systems.
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