Cyber-attack vulnerability analysis of communication based train control

Abstract

Recently, as train control systems are replaced with wireless communication based train control systems, there is an increased risk of safety being compromised. One risk is that an attacker uses wireless communication in the train network to access the network. Accordingly, research is underway on countermeasures to prevent an attacker from interfering with the data needed to control the train.

In this paper, we study the Korean radio train control system, which is one of the types of wireless communication based train control system. A cyber attack proposed in previous research is used not only for the train system but also other systems. In other words, it is an attack that does not consider the characteristics of the train properly. The main idea of the attack is to exploit a vulnerability that distinguish data only on SEQ and CRC of data without a special security system in discriminating data in train network.

This cyber attack is effective and the damage that occurs is confirmed through experiments in a testbed similar to a real environment. The proposed attack is based on a message that is used in the actual train network, and is different from the existing attacks. In this sense, it is expected to cause great damage in a real environment. The results have shown that countermeasures against this problem are necessary. ⓒ 2017 DGIST