Use of Cyber Attacks as a Case Study for Design Projects in an Undergraduate Process Control Course

Cyberattacks on process control systems are a new phenomenon. A new, simplified, and constrained design project was tested in a third year chemical engineering process control class. This design project was assigned to self-selected, small (3-4) student groups, who were tasked to produce five reports in series. The first report provided a preliminary identification and description of a cyberattack on a chemical process control system. The second report described a more detailed and technical analysis of the cyberattack, using a block diagram. The third report was a proposal of how an engineer on duty during the attack could have mitigated the effects of the cyberattack. The design component was the goal of the fourth report: create a strategy for preventing future, similar cyberattacks. The fifth report was a summary report of the first four reports, with edits made to improve the content and quality of technical writing. After the course was completed, an on-line survey was offered to the students. The results revealed the students’ inexperience with generating a solution to open problems, solving problems with few available resources, and the need for technical writing improvement.46 % of the student survey respondents reported that the project increased their understanding of the relevance of process control to their education; 32 % reported a neutral effect, and 21 % a negative effect. An overall positive recommendation favoured repeating improved iterations of this project