Formally Verifying Flow Integrity Properties in Industrial Systems∗

In contrast to other IT systems, industrial systems often do not only require classical properties like data confidentiality or authentication of the communication, but have special needs due to their interaction with physical world. For example, the reordering or deletion of some commands sent to a machine can cause the system to enter an unsafe state with potentially catastrophic effects. To prevent such attacks, the integrity of the message flow is necessary. We provide a formal definition of Flow Integrity. We apply our framework to two well-known industrial protocols: OPC-UA and MODBUS. Using TAMARIN, a cryptographic protocol verification tool, we confirm that most of the secure modes of these protocols ensure Flow Integrity given a resilient network. However, we also identify a weakness in a supposedly secure version of MODBUS.