Study the Level of Network Security and Penetration Tests on Power Electronic Device

Abstract

This work demonstrates the feasibility of using Kali Linux in the process of power electronic device research. The novelty in this work is the use of Kali Linux in the process of power electronic device research. This operating system is mainly used for the penetration testing of various communication devices but not for power electronic device research. The aim of this work is to study the level of network security (the type of security vulnerabilities that a power electronic device has) and whether the data exchange between the power electronic device and the monitoring and control center is secure. Additionally, penetration testing has been carried out. Kali Linux was used to implement these tasks. Penetration testing was performed to verify how the studied power electronic device reacted to various TCP DoS attacks—could it be accessed, was it blocked, etc. Kali Linux and some of the tools built into the operating system—Nmap, hping3, Wireshark, Burp Suite Community Edition—were used for this study. During the penetration tests, a characterization of the traffic being processed/generated by the studied power electronic device was carried out to evaluate and analyze what impact each TCP DoS attack had on the device’s performance. In order to conduct the study, an experimental setup was designed. This experimental network was not connected to other networks, so the cyber attacks were controlled and confined within the experimental network. The research carried out validated the use of Kali Linux for the study of power electronic devices. From the obtained results, it is found that the studied power electronic device provides a certain level of network security, but the data exchange is insecure.