CoFacS -- Simulating a Complete Factory to Study the Security of Interconnected Production

2025-08-20

AI Summary

Existing industrial security testing platforms can only simulate isolated production-line segments, hindering end-to-end evaluation of cyberattack impacts and defense efficacy. To address this, we propose CoFacS—the first full-process, high-fidelity factory simulation system—integrating industrial control, network, and 5G communication simulations with physical components including real PLCs and SCADA systems to establish a hybrid cyber-physical attack-defense testbed. Its key innovation lies in the first implementation of physics-network co-simulation for coordinated attacks and dynamic, line-wide response modeling, achieving <0.11% output deviation from physical plant behavior. Leveraging CoFacS, we conducted two case studies: (1) evaluation of intrusion detection mechanisms and (2) assessment of 5G industrial communication resilience against interference. Results demonstrate CoFacS’s effectiveness and practicality for rigorous industrial cybersecurity validation.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Simulating Human Behavior
• Search and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Federated Web and WoT systems, including distributed, federated and edge-based data processing
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data generation and simulation

Abstract

While the digitization of industrial factories provides tremendous improvements for the production of goods, it also renders such systems vulnerable to serious cyber-attacks. To research, test, and validate security measures protecting industrial networks against such cyber-attacks, the security community relies on testbeds to simulate industrial systems, as utilizing live systems endangers costly components or even human life. However, existing testbeds focus on individual parts of typically complex production lines in industrial factories. Consequently, the impact of cyber-attacks on industrial networks as well as the effectiveness of countermeasures cannot be evaluated in an end-to-end manner. To address this issue and facilitate research on novel security mechanisms, we present CoFacS, the first COmplete FACtory Simulation that replicates an entire production line and affords the integration of real-life industrial applications. To showcase that CoFacS accurately captures real-world behavior, we validate it against a physical model factory widely used in security research. We show that CoFacS has a maximum deviation of 0.11% to the physical reference, which enables us to study the impact of physical attacks or network-based cyber-attacks. Moreover, we highlight how CoFacS enables security research through two cases studies surrounding attack detection and the resilience of 5G-based industrial communication against jamming.

Problem

• Simulating entire factory production lines for security research
• Studying cyber-attack impacts on interconnected industrial systems
• Evaluating end-to-end effectiveness of security countermeasures

Innovation

• Complete factory simulation for end-to-end security testing
• Integration of real-life industrial applications into simulation
• Validated against physical model with minimal deviation