OT / ICS / SCADA Security

OT / ICS / SCADA Security

Purpose

Enable Claude to assess Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control System (ICS) environments — PLCs, RTUs, HMIs, SCADA servers, historians, and field devices — with safety as the first constraint. Claude reasons about the Purdue/ISA-95 model, analyzes industrial protocols passively, maps adversary behavior to MITRE ATT&CK for ICS, and aligns recommendations to IEC 62443 and the NIST SP 800-82 guidance.

SAFETY & AUTHORIZATION — READ FIRST: OT systems control physical processes; a crashed PLC can mean equipment damage, environmental release, or loss of life. Default to passive, non-intrusive methods. Never send active scans, writes, or protocol fuzzing to production OT without written authorization, asset-owner sign-off, and a tested rollback/safety plan — ideally on a test bench or during a maintenance window. Confirm scope and the "do-no-harm" boundary before proceeding.

Activation Triggers

This skill activates when the user asks about:

• ICS / SCADA / OT / DCS security or industrial network assessment
• Modbus, DNP3, S7comm, EtherNet/IP, BACnet, OPC-UA, IEC 61850/104 protocols
• PLC, RTU, HMI, historian, or engineering-workstation security
• Purdue model / ISA-95 segmentation and IT/OT boundary review
• IEC 62443, NIST SP 800-82, or NERC CIP alignment
• MITRE ATT&CK for ICS technique mapping
• Internet-exposed ICS devices (Shodan/Censys dorks) or ICS asset inventory
• OT threat detection, anomaly monitoring, or ICS incident response

Prerequisites

pip install requests pyyaml
# Protocol libraries (lab use): pip install pymodbus scapy

Optional enhanced capabilities:

• Wireshark / tshark with ICS dissectors (Modbus, DNP3, S7, ENIP, GOOSE)
• nmap ICS NSE scripts (use read-only scripts only, with care)
• GRASSMARLIN / passive asset-discovery tooling
• Shodan/Censys access for exposure checks (passive, external)

Core Capabilities

1. Architecture & Purdue Model Review

When asked to review OT architecture, map assets to Purdue levels and assess the boundaries:

Flag: missing IDMZ, flat IT/OT networks, dual-homed engineering workstations, remote vendor access bypassing the DMZ, and any direct path from L4/L5 to L0–L2.

2. Industrial Protocol Analysis (Passive-First)

Prefer reading a SPAN/TAP capture over active probing. From a PCAP, identify:

• Modbus/TCP (502) — function codes; flag writes (FC 5/6/15/16), unauthenticated reads, exposure beyond the cell.
• DNP3 (20000) — operate/direct-operate, lack of Secure Authentication (SAv5).
• S7comm / S7comm-plus (102) — PLC start/stop, program upload/download.
• EtherNet/IP + CIP (44818/2222) — forward-open, attribute writes.
• OPC-UA (4840) — security policy None, anonymous sessions.
• IEC 61850 GOOSE/MMS, IEC 60870-5-104 (2404), BACnet (47808) as present.

Note that most ICS protocols have no authentication or encryption by design — any reachable client can issue commands. Use scripts/ics_protocol_analyzer.py to summarize an exported PCAP and flag write/control operations and unexpected talkers.

3. Exposure & Asset Discovery

• Passive inventory from captures (MAC/OUI → vendor, protocol → device role).
• External exposure (read-only, external) via Shodan/Censys dorks — never expose live device details publicly:
  • port:502 product:Modbus, port:20000 source address, tag:ics, "Siemens, SIMATIC", port:47808, "Schneider Electric".
• For any device that must be reachable, document why, the compensating controls, and whether it should be behind the IDMZ instead.
• Active scanning, if authorized: use only read-only nmap NSE (modbus-discover, s7-info, bacnet-info, enip-info) with low rate, never against safety-instrumented systems (SIS).

4. Threat Modeling — MITRE ATT&CK for ICS

Map plausible adversary paths using the ICS matrix tactics: Initial Access → Execution → Persistence → Evasion → Discovery → Lateral Movement → Collection → Command-and-Control → Inhibit Response Function → Impair Process Control → Impact. Reference high-signal techniques (e.g., T0883 Internet-Accessible Device, T0836 Modify Parameter, T0831 Manipulation of Control, T0814 Denial of Service, T0816 Device Restart/Shutdown). Anchor scenarios to real tradecraft (Stuxnet, TRITON/TRISIS targeting SIS, Industroyer/CRASHOVERRIDE, PIPEDREAM/INCONTROLLER).

5. IEC 62443 / NIST SP 800-82 Alignment

• Define zones and conduits; assign Security Levels (SL 1–4) per zone based on threat.
• Review against IEC 62443-3-3 system requirements (FR1 IAC, FR2 UC, FR3 system integrity, FR4 data confidentiality, FR5 restricted data flow, FR6 timely response, FR7 resource availability).
• Map to NIST SP 800-82r3 control overlays and NERC CIP where the asset owner is in scope (BES).

6. OT-Aware Detection & Incident Response

• Detection: baseline normal protocol talkers and command rates; alert on unexpected write/program-download, new engineering connections, off-hours commands, and L4→L1 traffic.
• IR (coordinate with → Skill 07, but OT-modified): safety and process continuity outrank evidence preservation; involve process/safety engineers; prefer passive collection; have a manual-operations fallback before isolating anything.

Output Standards

# OT/ICS Security Assessment — [Site / System]
Date: [Date] | Scope: [Zones/Assets] | Method: [Passive/Active] | Analyst: [Name]
Safety constraints honored: [yes — passive only / window used / etc.]

## Executive Summary
[Posture, top safety-relevant risks]

## Purdue / Zone-Conduit Map
[Levels, boundaries, IDMZ status]

## Findings
### [O-01] Modbus writes reachable from IT VLAN  (Critical)
- ATT&CK ICS: T0883, T0836 | IEC 62443 FR5
- Evidence: [pcap flow IT-host → PLC FC16]
- Process impact: [what physical effect is possible]
- Remediation: [conduit/firewall rule, IDMZ broker, read-only segmentation]

## IEC 62443 Zone/SL Recommendations
| Zone | Current SL | Target SL | Gap |

## Prioritized Remediation (safety-weighted)

Script Reference

ics_protocol_analyzer.py

# Summarize an exported PCAP CSV/JSON (from tshark) and flag control/write ops
tshark -r capture.pcap -T json > capture.json
python scripts/ics_protocol_analyzer.py --input capture.json --output ics_report.json

# Generate Shodan/Censys exposure dorks for a vendor/protocol set
python scripts/ics_protocol_analyzer.py --dorks --vendor siemens --output dorks.txt

Skill Integration

References

• MITRE ATT&CK for ICS
• NIST SP 800-82 Rev. 3 — Guide to OT Security
• IEC 62443 series — Industrial Automation and Control Systems Security
• CISA — ICS Recommended Practices & Advisories
• NERC CIP Standards