An Overview of Safety and Security Analysis Frameworks for the Internet of Things

Abstract

The rapid progress of the Internet of Things (IoT) has continued to offer humanity numerous benefits, including many security and safety-critical applications. However, unlocking the full potential of IoT applications, especially in high-consequence domains, requires the assurance that IoT devices will not constitute risk hazards to the users or the environment. To design safe, secure, and reliable IoT systems, numerous frameworks have been proposed to analyse the safety and security, among other properties. This paper reviews some of the prominent classical and model-based system engineering (MBSE) approaches for IoT systems’ safety and security analysis. The review established that most analysis frameworks are based on classical manual approaches, which independently evaluate the two properties. The manual frameworks tend to inherit the natural limitations of informal system modelling, such as human error, a cumbersome processes, time consumption, and a lack of support for reusability. Model-based approaches have been incorporated into the safety and security analysis process to simplify the analysis process and improve the system design’s efficiency and manageability. Conversely, the existing MBSE safety and security analysis approaches in the IoT environment are still in their infancy. The limited number of proposed MBSE approaches have only considered limited and simple scenarios, which are yet to adequately evaluate the complex interactions between the two properties in the IoT domain. The findings of this survey are that the existing methods have not adequately addressed the analysis of safety/security interdependencies, detailed cyber security quantification analysis, and the unified treatment of safety and security properties. The existing classical and MBSE frameworks’ limitations obviously create gaps for a meaningful assessment of IoT dependability. To address some of the gaps, we proposed a possible research direction for developing a novel MBSE approach for the IoT domain’s safety and security coanalysis framework.

Enhancing Safety in IoT Systems: A Model-Based Assessment of a Smart Irrigation System Using Fault Tree Analysis

“…It identifies and evaluates the potential failure modes of a system, assessing their impact on safety, reliability, and performance [14,64]. FMEAs are often attributed to the US military, who first utilised this technique in the late 1940s to mitigate potential failures and minimise sources of variation during munitions production [20,65]. Notably, FMEA is also used for failure analysis of smart agriculture [66].…”

“…The FTA method is a systematic graphical methodology widely used in engineering, safety, and risk assessment to thoroughly analyse the causes of failures within complex systems. It originated in 1962 at Bell Phone Laboratories and was initially crafted to evaluate the failure behaviours of the launch control system of the LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as part of the United States' strategic deterrent forces [20,76]. Over the years, FTA has evolved into a pivotal tool for failure analysis, finding applications in diverse domains, including industrial safety-critical systems, and gaining momentum in IoT-based applications.…”

“…On the other hand, quantitative analysis uses failure rates of components or probabilities of root causes to predict system failure. Considering the type of logic gates used between events, the system failure probability can be calculated [12,20].…”

“…By utilising a visual and deductive approach, the FTA method identifies potential safety risks, predictive failure of the system, critical failure scenarios, and the shortest path to system failure [17,18]. The FTA process involves understanding system functions and components, identifying possible failure modes, determining the root cause of failures, and proposing corrective actions to address them [19]. The FTA method remains a well-established approach for assessing the safety and reliability of agricultural systems, contributing to improved performance and enhanced productivity.…”

“…Despite the wide adoption of the FTA model as a safety analysis method, the reliance on FT has some inherent limitations, such as being a manual process, not supporting reusability, being prone to human errors, and becoming cumbersome when the failure behaviour becomes complicated [13,20]. Model-driven approaches are being adopted from the functional system design domain to the safety analysis environment to overcome these challenges and keep up with the latest advancements in the overall system design approach.…”