Identifying Critical Components in Large Scale Cyber Physical Systems

Akbarzadeh, Aida; Katsikas, Sokratis K.

doi:10.1145/3387940.3391473

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…One can provide a list of target elements to check, preferably based on the importance of components in a system. Recently, the authors in [37] proposed a method to rank the criticality of components in CPSs by leveraging the characteristics of system components and their connected links based on the graph metrics, which can be applied here to extract the list of target elements.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unified IT&OT Modeling for Cybersecurity Analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems

Akbarzadeh

Katsikas

2022

IEEE Open J. Ind. Electron. Soc.

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Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) engineering profoundly relies on modeling methods to represent the system and study the operation and cybersecurity of CPSs. The operation of a CPS is the result of the collaboration between Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) components. While OT focuses on the system's process physics, the emphasis of IT is on information flow. Consequently, different system models are utilized to study various aspects of CPSs, which may infer different views of the same system. The increasing complexity of CPSs and the high number of cyberattacks against Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) and CPSs in recent years have highlighted the necessity of considering these interrelations based on a unified model to analyze cybersecurity of CPSs. However, the diversity of engineering fields and implicit relations and dependencies between them have made it difficult to integrate the modeling methods towards a unified IT&OT model of CPSs.In this paper, we propose a comprehensive method, based on bond graphs, to model CPS and analyze their cybersecurity. Unlike existing methods, modeling the cyber layer along with the physical layer based on the system flow provides a holistic graphical representation of a CPS, which facilitates collaboration between IT and OT experts.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unified IT&OT Modeling for Cybersecurity Analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems

Akbarzadeh

Katsikas

2022

IEEE Open J. Ind. Electron. Soc.

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“…In this section, we analyse the proposed dependency parameters based on the micro-distribution network that was developed on the basis of a real French distribution network with 14 power-bus, called G2ELAB 14-Bus. This system includes both Electric Power System (EPS) and the ICT system (see Figure 7 ), and has been broadly used in related studies [ 33 , 62 , 63 ]. Although the advantages of MDSM as a graphical model could be recognized better in large scale systems, this system has been chosen for educational purposes and for allowing the comparison of our results with those in previous works.…”

Section: Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a follow-up paper [ 33 ], the authors expanded the study and introduced

as critical nodes based on the Node Degree and weighted Efficiency. Aligned with these papers, a recent study conducted on this system ranked the criticality of each node based on the aggregation of three metrics that measure the importance of each node and its connected links in the entire system [ 63 ].…”

Section: Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identifying and Analyzing Dependencies in and among Complex Cyber Physical Systems

Akbarzadeh

Katsikas

2021

Sensors

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Contemporary Critical Infrastructures (CIs), such as the power grid, comprise cyber physical systems that are tightly coupled, to form a complex system of interconnected components with interacting dependencies. Modelling methodologies have been suggested as proper tools to provide better insight into the dependencies and behavioural characteristics of these complex systems. In order to facilitate the study of interconnections in and among critical infrastructures, and to provide a clear view of the interdependencies among their cyber and physical components, this paper proposes a novel method, based on a graphical model called Modified Dependency Structure Matrix (MDSM). The MDSM provides a compact perspective of both inter-dependency and intra-dependency between subsystems of one complex system or two distinct systems. Additionally, we propose four parameters that allow the quantitative assessment of the characteristics of dependencies, including multi-order dependencies in large scale CIs. We illustrate the workings of the proposed method by applying it to a micro-distribution network based on the G2ELAB 14-Bus model. The results provide valuable insight into the dependencies among the network components and substantiate the applicability of the proposed method for analyzing large scale cyber physical systems.

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“…Path attack analysis based on graphs is a challenging issue that depends on the calculation of pertinent edge's weights. To this end, the navigation system of a generic ship composed of 13 nodes was analyzed taking into account the criticality of system components and their dependencies [10]. Graphs were applied to identify vulnerabilities and understand potential cascading failures of water management systems in vessels [11], which are crucial for navigation.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Model graph generation for naval cyber-physical systems

Pelissero

Laso

Puentes

2021

OCEANS 2021: San Diego – Porto

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Naval vessels infrastructures are evolving towards increasingly connected and automatic systems. Such accelerated complexity boost to search for more adapted and useful navigation devices may be at odds with cybersecurity, making necessary to develop adapted analysis solutions for experts. This paper introduces a novel process to visualize and analyze naval Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) using oriented graphs, considering operational constraints, to represent physical and functional connections between multiple components of CPS. Rapid prototyping of interconnected components is implemented in a semi-automatic manner by defining the CPS's digital and physical systems as nodes, along with system variables as edges, to form three layers of an oriented graph, using the open-source Neo4j software suit. The generated multi-layer graph can be used to support cybersecurity analysis, like attacks simulation, anomaly detection and propagation estimation, applying existing or new algorithms.

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Identifying Critical Components in Large Scale Cyber Physical Systems

Cited by 10 publications

References 12 publications

Unified IT&OT Modeling for Cybersecurity Analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems

Unified IT&OT Modeling for Cybersecurity Analysis of Cyber-Physical Systems

Identifying and Analyzing Dependencies in and among Complex Cyber Physical Systems

Model graph generation for naval cyber-physical systems

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