Enhancing Privacy in Water Distribution System SCADA Networks: Development of a ModbusTCP Anonymization Tool

Network traffic data privacy is, nowadays, a key factor not just to avoid information leakage, but also to allow data owners providing their systems' data in a safer way and help on the development of better and more robust network security mechanisms. Though, in the specific case of SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems, where due to their nature and characteristics, common anonymization tools are still not correctly effective. This study focuses on anonymization of SCADA Modbus TCP network traffic data, aiming to enhance its privacy and deliver a dedicated anonymization tool. This research adopts a true-experiment method, lying on the most common quantitative strategies. Its outcome highlights the ModbusTCP Anonymizer tool, approaching different anonymization algorithms, such as black marker, time unit annihilation, random permutation and truncation. The contribution of this research will help on promoting a better privacy level to SCADA network traffic data, making SCADA owners more comfortable, when providing their systems' traffic, to be used in security studies and, consequently, in increasing the security of SCADA systems worldwide. Results show a clear difference among anonymization tools, where the ModbusTCP Anonymizer tool achieved a much better Modbus integrity along the anonymization process, when compared to other common tools.