Industrial Cybersecurity Lab: OT Networks, IEC 62443 and Defence

Objectives

The programme develops theoretical and practical skills in industrial cybersecurity, focusing on protecting OT networks in automated production and Industry 4.0 settings.

• OT security fundamentals
  • Threat landscape and attack vectors in industrial environments.
  • Principles of hardening, identity management and access control.
• Controlled analysis and penetration testing
  • Simulations: replay, DoS, network scans and reconnaissance.
  • Defining and applying effective countermeasures.
• Secure architectures and segmentation
  • Zones and conduits, VLAN segmentation and OT/IT DMZ.
  • Industrial routers/firewalls and defence in depth.
• Protocols and integration
  • OPC UA, MQTT, Profinet/Profibus, IO-Link modules.
  • Monitoring with traffic analysers, Wireshark and Zenmap.
• Compliance and good practice
  • Introduction to IEC 62443 and guidelines for OT environments.
  • Policies, logging, backup and incident response.

Aims

The lab integrates cybersecurity into automation processes, making students aware of the threats and defences in cyber-physical environments.

• Secure architectures: designing OT networks with segmentation (zones/VLANs) and a DMZ.
• Standards: applying IEC 62443 principles to plants and devices.
• Interdisciplinarity: computing, automation, electronics and industrial networking.
• Realistic scenarios: compromise and defence with risk analysis and response plans.
• OT–IT bridging: secure, traceable data exchange between the factory floor and information systems.

Conclusion

By the end of the programme, students will be able to:

1. Recognise typical threats and vulnerabilities of OT networks.
2. Design secure architectures with zones/VLANs, firewalls and an OT–IT DMZ.
3. Configure protocols and devices (OPC UA, MQTT, Profinet/Profibus, IO-Link).
4. Analyse traffic (Wireshark, Zenmap) and detect anomalies.
5. Apply IEC 62443 principles and define countermeasures and incident response procedures.

Based on professional technologies and software, the lab offers an up-to-date, inclusive setting for active, collaborative learning geared to the needs of Industry 4.0.