Security risks in cyber physical systems—A systematic mapping study

Abstract

The increased need for constant connectivity and complete automation of existing systems fuels the popularity of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) worldwide. Increasingly more, these systems are subjected to cyber attacks. In recent years, many major cyber‐attack incidents on CPS have been recorded and, in turn, have been raising concerns in their users' minds. Unlike in traditional IT systems, the complex architecture of CPS consisting of embedded systems integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT) requires rather extensive planning, implementation, and monitoring of security requirements. One crucial step to planning, implementing, and monitoring of these requirements in CPS is the integration of the risk management process in the CPS development life cycle. Existing studies do not clearly portray the extent of damage that the unattended security issues in CPS can cause or have caused, in the incidents recorded. An overview of the possible risk management techniques that could be integrated into the development and maintenance of CPS contributing to improving its security level in its actual environment is missing. In this paper, we are set out to highlight the security requirements and issues specific to CPS that are discussed in scientific literature and to identify the state‐of‐the‐art risk management processes adopted to identify, monitor, and control those security issues in CPS. For that, we conducted a systematic mapping study on the data collected from 312 papers published between 2000 and 2020, focused on the security requirements, challenges, and the risk management processes of CPS. Our work aims to form an overview of the security requirements and risks in CPS today and of those published contributions that have been made until now, towards improving the reliability of CPS. The results of this mapping study reveal (i) integrity authentication and confidentiality as the most targeted security attributes in CPS, (ii) model‐based techniques as the most used risk identification and assessment and management techniques in CPS, (iii) cyber‐security as the most common security risk in CPS, (iv) the notion of “mitigation measures” based on the type of system and the underline internationally recognized standard being the most used risk mitigation technique in CPS, (v) smart grids being the most targeted systems by cyber‐attacks and thus being the most explored domain in CPS literature, and (vi) one of the major limitations, according to the selected literature, concerns the use of the fault trees for fault representation, where there is a possibility of runtime system faults not being accounted for. Finally, the mapping study draws implications for practitioners and researchers based on the findings.

Comparison and Investigation of AI-Based Approaches for Cyberattack Detection in Cyber-Physical Systems

“…The emergence of CPSs presents new challenges against cyberattack risks and threats. Ensuring data protection against security risks and cyberattacks is one of the most complex issues within the CPS environment [16], [17]. Such cyberattacks include denial of service (DoS), Trojans, worms, and buffer overflow.…”

Context modeling for cyber‐physical systems

“…Alternatively, we can implicitly document context information as constraints in logic formulae. However, to leverage the inherent ability of model-based development to overcome challenges due to the inherent complexity of CPS, 29,81,82 we propose a documentation format employing graphical models in the following. For each context perspective, we propose an example list of model elements motivated by our explanations from Section 3 along with a brief description and visual notational element.…”

Addressing automotive cybersecurity risks with an ARM Morello capability-enhanced prototype

“…On one hand, Security-by-Design can be realised by effective cybersecurity standards and risk assessment methodologies in the automotive industry. Different from the traditional Information Technology systems, it is necessary to consider a suitable approach to planning, implementation and monitoring cyber security due to the high complexity level in the design of connected vehicles [20]. ISO/SAE 21434 [10] is a standard that provides a framework for the development and implementation of cybersecurity measures in road vehicles, while Threat and Risk Assessment (TARA) is a methodology for identifying and assessing potential cybersecurity risks in connected and autonomous vehicles.…”