Abstract: Information and communications technology (ICT) is prevalent in almost every field of industrial production and manufacturing processes at present. A typical industry network consists of sensors, actuators, devices, and services to connect, track, and manage production processes to increase performance and boost productivity. The SEMI Equipment Communications Standard/Generic Equipment Model (SECS/GEM) is SEMI's Machine-to-Machine (M2M) protocol for equipment-to-host data communications. It is the most popular and profoundly used M2M communication protocol operating in the manufacturing industry. With Industry 4.0 as a guiding factor, connectivity to business networks is required for accessing real-time data whenever and wherever needed. This openness of connectivity raises security concerns as SECS/GEM protocol offers no security, which endangers exposing the manufacturing industries' business secrets and production processes. This paper discusses the key processes involved in SECS/GEM communications and how potential attackers can manipulate these processes to obtain illegal or unauthorized access. The experiments' results indicate that the SECS/GEM processes are entirely vulnerable to numerous attacks, including DoS attack, Replay attack, and False-Data-Injection-Attack. Thus, the future direction involves developing a prevention mechanism that aims at securing the SECS/GEM processes in the industrial network. This study's findings are useful as preliminary guidance for the infrastructure owners to plan for appropriate security measures to protect the industrial network.

Shams A. Laghari, Selvakumar Manickam, Shankar Karuppayah, Ayman Al-Ani and Shafiq Ul Rehman, “Cyberattacks and Vociferous Implications on SECS/GEM Communications in Industry 4.0 Ecosystem” International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications(IJACSA), 12(7), 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2021.0120737

@article{Laghari2021,
title = {Cyberattacks and Vociferous Implications on SECS/GEM Communications in Industry 4.0 Ecosystem},
journal = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
doi = {10.14569/IJACSA.2021.0120737},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2021.0120737},
year = {2021},
publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
volume = {12},
number = {7},
author = {Shams A. Laghari and Selvakumar Manickam and Shankar Karuppayah and Ayman Al-Ani and Shafiq Ul Rehman}
}