CPSEC: A Digital Twin Approach for Autonomous Decision Support to Secure Critical Infrastructure

The pervasive use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has transformed our critical infrastructure to smart systems capable of autonomous control and communication. These smart capabilities come with the price of increasing the attack surface hence cyber threats. Existing technologies to secure critical infrastructure rely heavily on IT security solutions to safeguard the IoT devices and control network, with little awareness about the impact of cyber threats on the controlled physical system. This results in less accurate risk assessment and poor decision-making. Our solution is an autonomous decision support system that utilises a digital twin for the physical system to give a better threat intelligence and situational awareness, and to enable more accurate decision-making. The technology has the potential to enable more resilient critical infrastructure.