INCIBE-CERT

The M-Bus protocol is a common protocol in the industry in general, it’s daily use can be related to devices for measurements of electricity, gas, water, heating, etc. This protocol has a wireless variant called Wireless M-Bus and works through a hierarchical master/slave system, standardized according to EN13757.

Space is an increasingly important element in the critical infrastructures of all countries. The possibility of losing or degrading space services can significantly affect both national security and all customers who have contracted services involving the use of satellites or any other space devices, resulting in major economic and security losses.To protect it, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a cyber security framework for the commercial ground segment of the space sector, providing a means for stakeholders to assess their cyber security posture in terms of identification, protection, detection, response and recovery operations, thereby evaluating the level of risk to the satellite ground segment structure.

In the electricity sector, it has always been necessary to use robust communications that allow proper communication, since a failure in this sector would cause a large number of losses, both economic and social.In addition, with the technological advances, it is important also to have secure communications since the electricity sector is one of the sectors that currently suffers the most cyber-attacks. For this reason, in recent years different robust and secure protocols have been created.One of these protocols is DNP3, created mainly for the use of substation automation and control systems, for the electric utility industry, although it has now also been used for other sectors.Finally, in this article we want to explain in more depth the operation of this protocol and the benefits or disadvantages of using this protocol.