DPU-LARK: DPU-leveraged attestation of remote kernels for securing OT networks

It is widely recognized that critical infrastructures of nations present a significant and lucrative target for cyber-attacks and threat actors. With numerous real-world examples, such as the attack on the Ukranian power grid in 2015 which caused 225,000 customers to go without power, the need to secure the networks of such systems is more important than ever. This study aims to examine the efficacy of using a smart-NIC, such as the Bluefield-2 DPU, as a solution to enable greater cyber-security in the Smart Grid and other operational technology networks. While studies have been conducted to introduce remote attestation to OT networks, they fail to consider high-speed performance. Presented here is DPU-LARK, the first remote attestation scheme which considers message latency for common OT network messaging protocols. It tests the performance of this scheme using a Bluefield-2 DPU as a verifier, and compares them to solutions using a CPU alone. It also evaluates the performance of the scheme on low-power prover devices (micro-controllers) to determine the effect of the construction on latency, availability, memory, and network traffic. It finds that the DPU is able to outperform expensive, server-grade CPU’s with relevant hardware acceleration for high prover counts by up to 1.7x, and match performance at lower counts with much lighter cost. For CPU’s without acceleration, the DPU surpasses their performance by 11x-22x. Furthermore, under typical circumstances, DPU-LARK offers 99.9% availability for a 33s attestation period. Furthermore, message validation latency is negligible whenever a device is available.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Kozlowski, William

Contributors dc:contributor

• Chen, Deming

• Cyber Security
• Attestation
• Critical Infrastructure Security
• Smartnic

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 William Kozlowski

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124429

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F124429