A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected Sites
Cyber threats and vulnerabilities present an increasing risk to the safe and frictionless execution of business operations. Bad actors (“hackers”), including state actors, are increasingly targeting the operational technologies (OTs) and industrial control systems (ICSs) used to protect critical nat...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-10-01
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| Series: | Sensors |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/21/8720 |
| _version_ | 1797631348991590400 |
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| author | Amjad Mehmood Gregory Epiphaniou Carsten Maple Nikolaos Ersotelos Richard Wiseman |
| author_facet | Amjad Mehmood Gregory Epiphaniou Carsten Maple Nikolaos Ersotelos Richard Wiseman |
| author_sort | Amjad Mehmood |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Cyber threats and vulnerabilities present an increasing risk to the safe and frictionless execution of business operations. Bad actors (“hackers”), including state actors, are increasingly targeting the operational technologies (OTs) and industrial control systems (ICSs) used to protect critical national infrastructure (CNI). Minimisations of cyber risk, attack surfaces, data immutability, and interoperability of IoT are some of the main challenges of today’s CNI. Cyber security risk assessment is one of the basic and most important activities to identify and quantify cyber security threats and vulnerabilities. This research presents a novel i-TRACE security-by-design CNI methodology that encompasses CNI key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to combat the growing vicarious nature of remote, well-planned, and well-executed cyber-attacks against CNI, as recently exemplified in the current Ukraine conflict (2014–present) on both sides. The proposed methodology offers a hybrid method that specifically identifies the steps required (typically undertaken by those responsible for detecting, deterring, and disrupting cyber attacks on CNI). Furthermore, we present a novel, advanced, and resilient approach that leverages digital twins and distributed ledger technologies for our chosen i-TRACE use cases of energy management and connected sites. The key steps required to achieve the desired level of interoperability and immutability of data are identified, thereby reducing the risk of CNI-specific cyber attacks and minimising the attack vectors and surfaces. Hence, this research aims to provide an extra level of safety for CNI and OT human operatives, i.e., those tasked with and responsible for detecting, deterring, disrupting, and mitigating these cyber-attacks. Our evaluations and comparisons clearly demonstrate that i-TRACE has significant intrinsic advantages compared to existing “state-of-the-art” mechanisms. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-11T11:21:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9f11f73b2a94433690f142aca534455b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-11T11:21:34Z |
| publishDate | 2023-10-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj.art-9f11f73b2a94433690f142aca534455b2023-11-10T15:11:48ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202023-10-012321872010.3390/s23218720A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected SitesAmjad Mehmood0Gregory Epiphaniou1Carsten Maple2Nikolaos Ersotelos3Richard Wiseman4Secure Cyber Systems Research Group (CSCRG), WMG, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UKSecure Cyber Systems Research Group (CSCRG), WMG, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UKSecure Cyber Systems Research Group (CSCRG), WMG, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UKDepartment of Computer Science and Creative Technologies, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, UKBT Group, 5th Floor, Orion Building, Adastral Park, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich IP5 3RE, UKCyber threats and vulnerabilities present an increasing risk to the safe and frictionless execution of business operations. Bad actors (“hackers”), including state actors, are increasingly targeting the operational technologies (OTs) and industrial control systems (ICSs) used to protect critical national infrastructure (CNI). Minimisations of cyber risk, attack surfaces, data immutability, and interoperability of IoT are some of the main challenges of today’s CNI. Cyber security risk assessment is one of the basic and most important activities to identify and quantify cyber security threats and vulnerabilities. This research presents a novel i-TRACE security-by-design CNI methodology that encompasses CNI key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to combat the growing vicarious nature of remote, well-planned, and well-executed cyber-attacks against CNI, as recently exemplified in the current Ukraine conflict (2014–present) on both sides. The proposed methodology offers a hybrid method that specifically identifies the steps required (typically undertaken by those responsible for detecting, deterring, and disrupting cyber attacks on CNI). Furthermore, we present a novel, advanced, and resilient approach that leverages digital twins and distributed ledger technologies for our chosen i-TRACE use cases of energy management and connected sites. The key steps required to achieve the desired level of interoperability and immutability of data are identified, thereby reducing the risk of CNI-specific cyber attacks and minimising the attack vectors and surfaces. Hence, this research aims to provide an extra level of safety for CNI and OT human operatives, i.e., those tasked with and responsible for detecting, deterring, disrupting, and mitigating these cyber-attacks. Our evaluations and comparisons clearly demonstrate that i-TRACE has significant intrinsic advantages compared to existing “state-of-the-art” mechanisms.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/21/8720cyber resilient modelblockchaindigital twinscritical national infrastructure (CNI)critical success factor (CSF)key result areas (KRAs) |
| spellingShingle | Amjad Mehmood Gregory Epiphaniou Carsten Maple Nikolaos Ersotelos Richard Wiseman A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected Sites Sensors cyber resilient model blockchain digital twins critical national infrastructure (CNI) critical success factor (CSF) key result areas (KRAs) |
| title | A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected Sites |
| title_full | A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected Sites |
| title_fullStr | A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected Sites |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected Sites |
| title_short | A Hybrid Methodology to Assess Cyber Resilience of IoT in Energy Management and Connected Sites |
| title_sort | hybrid methodology to assess cyber resilience of iot in energy management and connected sites |
| topic | cyber resilient model blockchain digital twins critical national infrastructure (CNI) critical success factor (CSF) key result areas (KRAs) |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/23/21/8720 |
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