A Partition-Driven Integrated Security Architecture for Cyber-Physical Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel partition-driven security architecture for cyber-physical systems that localizes and recovers from cyber-attacks, demonstrated through simulations on power grid scenarios to improve system resilience.

Contribution

It introduces a new security architecture that localizes cyber-attacks and restores system functionality in complex cyber-physical systems with interdependencies.

Findings

Effective in containing cyber-attacks in power grid simulations

Improves system availability during cyber-attacks

Reduces impact on electric load distribution

Abstract

Emerging cyber-physical systems incorporate systems of systems that have functional interdependencies. With the increase in complexity of the cyber-physical systems, the attack surface also expands, making cyber-physical systems more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The functional interdependencies exacerbate the security risk as a cyber-attack that compromises one constituent system of a cyber-physical system can disseminate to others. This can result in a cascade effect that can impair the operability of the whole cyber-physical system. In this article, we present a novel security architecture that localizes the cyber-attack in a timely manner, and simultaneously recovers the affected cyber-physical system functionality. We have evaluated the performance of the architecture for advanced metering infrastructure-based pricing cyber-attacks scenario. The simulation results exhibit the effectiveness of the proposed architecture in containing the attack in terms of system availability and its impact on the electric load distribution in the power grid.