Railway cyber safety: An intelligent threat perspective

Abstract

Cybersecurity threats to railways are increasing, both due to improvements in the techniques of hackers and the increasing merger of cyber and physical spheres. Accepted approaches to safety can be extended to consider the risks from cyber, however the nature of railways as complex cyber-physical systems of systems may require a broader approach beyond functional safety. This paper explores some of the cybersecurity hazards using a war gaming approach. The authors find that, while standard engineering approaches are effective in building new rail control system components, a broader and more creative consideration of attacks has benefits. In particular they identify the ability to cause mass disruption by targeting the fail-safes designed to ensure safety or auxiliary systems that are not directly classified within the scope of the ICS.

A review on cybersecurity in railways

“…44 In addition to this, researchers have used attack trees to build cyberattack scenarios for rail control system and provided countermeasures for railway cyber safety. 45 Next, researchers have also proposed an enhanced model called communication based train control and management enhanced safety and security impact reference model (CBTC e-SSIRM plus) for secure communication between track-side and on-board equipment. 46–49…”

Railway cyber security and TS50701

“…As political tensions continue to increase, the risk of a cyber-attack by state sponsored actors continues to grow. Whereas independent hackers choose simple attacks which provide large monetary rewards, state actors are more likely to target critical infrastructure [29].…”