Securing Industrial Systems: A Testbed for Cyber-Defense Evaluation and Data Collection

Over recent years, many Industrial Control System (ICS) components have been exposed to both the Internet and corporate networks to enhance the management of industrial processes. However, this increased exposure has often taken place without adequate consideration for cybersecurity, making industrial networks more vulnerable to cyberattacks. In this context, digital twins have emerged as innovative solutions to evaluate novel cyber-defense strategies that can mitigate threats affecting industrial networks. Unfortunately, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no digital twin that is flexible enough to integrate both physical and virtualized components according to user preferences while simultaneously supporting novel approaches based on the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm. To address these issues, we developed a flexible hybrid/virtual digital twin that mimics a physical Microgrid testbed known as EPIC. Specifically, our solution leverages vir-tualization and containerization to create a lightweight platform that can include the widest possible range of vulnerabilities. Furthermore, we employ Open vSwitch to implement SDN-based methodologies and integrate physical components into our platform. Lastly, we provide a comprehensive tool that collects all possible logs from the testbed.