Information Security for Oil and Gas Well Drilling Automation Systems

The development and complication of APCS information security make the associated problems more relevant. This is especially true for critical and potentially hazardous facilities that include almost all of the oil and gas sector. The vulnerabilities of distributed APCS occur due to various reasons including the use of wireless communications (public-key Wi-Fi encryption). Thus, the selection of the optimal data transfer protocol and encryption/decryption algorithm for the APCS of a specific industrial facility is a key stage in its design. This article reviews the encryption problems for wireless communication channels between the upper (SCADA) and middle (PLC), and middle and lower (sensors) levels of the automation system of drilling rigs and auxiliary facilities. The selection criteria included information security and power consumption because many APCS components have autonomous power sources. The authors demonstrate that, irrespective of the specific topology and physical implementation of the autonomous system transferring data over a radio channel, it is preferable to use symmetrical encryption algorithms, either block or flow. In most cases, the optimal solution facilitating the required level of information security and minimum power consumption is a symmetrical block AES algorithm.