Design and Implementation of a Cyber Physical Testbed for Security Training

This paper describes the work of introducing a CPS (Cyber Physical System) extension to our Internet event simulator at Iowa State University, known as ISEAGE, for Cyber Defense Competitions (CDCs). The CPS extension consists of a virtual control system to interface with CPS devices, a human machine interface (HMI) to access and control the devices, a virtual world to simulate the physical effects of the devices, and a backend to support the use of the CPS component in CDCs. These components communicate with each other using the Open Platform Communications standard. A CPS-CDC scenario is developed where participants are tasked with defending two CPS networks representing water and power utilities. To enhance the experience for participants, we also 3D-print a model of the virtual city served by these utilities. The 3D city reflects the state of the competition via LEDs that report the availability of services. The design of our CPS-CDC is highly modular, supporting any number of different CPS devices and systems, and can be adapted to a wide set of possible CPS scenarios.