Analysis of existing dynamic software updating techniques for safe and secure industrial control systems

Abstract

Higher interconnectivity among devices, machines, the cloud and humans is envisioned in the actual trend of automation, also known as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). These industrial control systems, which may require high availability and/or safety related capabilities, are no longer isolated from the corporate environment or Internet. Software updates will be needed during the product life cycle, due to the long service life, the increasing number of security related vulnerabilities discovered on these industrial control systems and the high interconnectivity desired in IIoT. These updates aim at fixing all these security weaknesses, bugs and vulnerabilities that could appear, while the required safety integrity levels are ensured. Security-related concerns have just been addressed by the safety engineering community, because of the increasing number of cyber-attacks against safety-critical systems, such as Stuxnet. Moreover, system shut-downs caused by software updates could not be plausible when high availability is required. Typically, in order to perform the software update, the whole industrial process or the production is halted, so that the software upgrade is safely applied. However, this scenario might not be applied in critical infrastructures, such as nuclear or hydroelectrical power plants, where these production and service interruptions are not acceptable from the business and service point of view. This article presents an analysis of existing dynamic software updating techniques, which may be applied for safe and secure industrial control systems. These techniques aim at updating the running code, without the need of a halt and restart, increasing the availability of the industrial system.

UP2DATE: Safe and secure over-the-air software updates on high-performance mixed-criticality systems

“…The safe and secure OTASU paradigm promoted by UP2DATE will incrementally combine these three properties together with next generation heterogeneous platforms. While there are extensive works addressing OTASU with any of these elements separately [16], [17], [21], UP2DATE will rely on the contract concept to build an update framework capable of handling all these aspects together. Additionally, UP2DATE will study how to exploit the higher computing performance properties of heterogeneous platforms to enable dynamic updates and their implications on safety and security.…”

“…Over-The-Air Software Updates (OTASU), a common technology in consumer electronics like the mobile market, allow the execution of remote updates from user-level applications down to firmware and offer several benefits in terms of bug fixing, adding new functionality and solving security vulnerabilities [17]. These benefits make OTASU a key technology to stay competitive in many safety-critical markets.…”

“…Current safety standards do not capture OTASU and there is not a clear procedure to guarantee that the system remains safe after the update. • Security: While OTASU eases the application of security patches and it is a practice required by security standards [17], they shall be applied with extra care to prevent the downloading of fraudulent software into the system. This may not only affect the security of the system but also its safety.…”

Dynamic software updating: a systematic mapping study

“…Mugarza et al [13 ] presented an analysis of existing DSU techniques and focused on DSU for increasing safety, security, and availability of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) systems. Moreover, Miedes and Muñoz‐Escoí [1 ] reviewed a set of DSU studies in a technical report.…”

“…Over time, extensive literature has developed on DSU [1, 10–13 ]. In short, DSU has been discussed by a great number of authors for decades [14, 15 ].…”