Cybersecurity in safety‐critical systems

Abstract

2016 saw cybersecurity standards appear in both automotive and medical device industries. Both standards are understandably based on processes that already exist in the respective industries. The automotive J3061 1 standard is very much focussed on existing categories for defining the cybersecurity threats, ie, systems, hardware and software. Cybersecurity is very much a multifaceted topic, and by restricting the scope to these 3 subject areas there is the risk that many significant threats could be overlooked, in particular the malicious acts of employees within an organisation.The medical cybersecurity report AAMI TIR 57 2 takes the approach based on ISO 14971 3 the medical device risk management standard, which encourages a more open-minded approach to evaluating cybersecurity threats. Both of these documents, which are discussed in this paper, are short of practical examples or techniques for assessing and mitigating threats; the topic is handled in a more theoretical manner.Key issues such as trojan circuits in microcontrollers are not well represented in either document. Generally, software topics such as authentication and encryption are given good coverage in international standards; however, this not the case when reviewing hardware concerns. Both TIR 57 and J3061 are good starting documents for the topic of cybersecurity, but both could benefit from expansion to cover the wider topics affecting cybersecurity. KEYWORDS cybersecurity, risk model, sabotage, threat, trojan circuits | INTRODUCTIONIn 2016, 2 of the main safety-related industries introduced key guidance documents on cybersecurity. This paper looks at the different ways that both address the subject and also looks at potential gaps left by the guidance documents in this complex subject area. This paper compares the 2 cybersecurity standards and attempts to assess the pros and cons of both. Ultimately, the aim here is not to define new findings in the field of cybersecurity but to establish the strengths and weaknesses of international standards addressing cybersecurity.In January 2016, the SAE International released J3061 Cybersecurity Guidebook for Cyber-Physical Vehicle Systems 1 and 6 months later the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation approved the technical information report TIR 57 Principles for medical device security-risk management. 2 Both these documents approach the subject using the existing process structure within the respective industries, and this results in a marked difference in the approaches, for what is a relatively similar problem. | THE CYBERSECURITY PRINCIPLESThe protection of personally identifiable information, ie, any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual's identity, is the key aim of cybersecurity and both standards were compared in this paper.The approach the 2 industries take to post-production activities is quite different. Medical device life-cycle is better adapted to monitoring postproduction activities. 6,7 Post-market surveillance is a key activity in the i...

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