CISPA
Browse

Time sensitive networking security: issues of precision time protocol and its implementation

Download (2.22 MB)
journal contribution
posted on 2024-04-03, 12:55 authored by Davide Berardi, Nils Ole TippenhauerNils Ole Tippenhauer, Andrea Melis, Marco Prandini, Franco Callegati
Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) will be an integral component of industrial networking. Time synchronization in TSN is provided by the IEEE-1588, Precision Time Protocol (PTP) protocol. The standard, dating back to 2008, marginally addresses security aspects, notably not encompassing the frames designed for management purposes (Type Length Values or TLVs). In this work we show that the TLVs can be abused by an attacker to reconfigure, manipulate, or shut down time synchronization. The effects of such an attack can be serious, ranging from interruption of operations to actual unintended behavior of industrial devices, possibly resulting in physical damages or even harm to operators. The paper analyzes the root causes of this vulnerability, and provides concrete examples of attacks leveraging it to de-synchronize the clocks, showing that they can succeed with limited resources, realistically available to a malicious actor.

History

Primary Research Area

  • Secure Connected and Mobile Systems

Journal

Cybersecurity

Volume

6

Page Range

8-8

Publisher

SpringerOpen

Open Access Type

  • Gold

Sub Type

  • Article

BibTeX

@article{Berardi:Tippenhauer:Melis:Prandini:Callegati:2023, title = "Time sensitive networking security: issues of precision time protocol and its implementation", author = "Berardi, Davide" AND "Tippenhauer, Nils O" AND "Melis, Andrea" AND "Prandini, Marco" AND "Callegati, Franco", year = 2023, month = 4, journal = "Cybersecurity", number = "1", pages = "8--8", publisher = "SpringerOpen", issn = "2096-4862", doi = "10.1186/s42400-023-00140-5" }

Usage metrics

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC