Security by Design for Interconnected Critical Infrastructures

The objective of the proposed collaborative work is to advance the state of the art in the design of secure
interconnected public infrastructures. The focus is on Security-by-Design. While security-by-design is not a new
concept, the approach proposed here and its context, are and especially so in the context of interconnected
public infrastructure.

The increasing commoditisation of components for critical infrastructures has led to the widespread use
of embedded computers in such systems. These computers are often interconnected using wireless
communications or ethernet. This trend has been accelerated by the need for remote maintenance
capability and regular upgrades of systems. An undesirable consequence has been that critical infrastructures
have become interconnected and interdependent. The result of an attack on one infrastructure may well have
cascading effects on others. Understanding such interdependencies and developing new design
methodologies to avoid the possibility of cascading security failures is central to this proposal.


The objective will be met through the following key steps: (a) modeling based on abstraction from system design
for security analysis, (b) impact and response analysis across interconnected infrastructures using the model, and
(c) upgrading of the initial design to improve system resilience to cyber attacks. A significant outcome of the above
approach will be a software prototype that implements the steps mentioned above and the integration of such tools
with state of the art existing design tools. The methodology and the tools developed will be assessed for their
effectiveness and practical utility through experiments designed jointly by the research teams from Imperial and
SUTD. The experiments will be conducted on state of the art testbeds available at SUTD for power and water.
Generalized attack models, in contrast to specific models that exist today, will be used to create objectively designed
cyber attacks to assess the resilience of interconnected systems when one or multiple systems are under attack.

The US Computer Emergency Response Team, ICS-CERT, reported 9 incidents in 2005 but this has grown to about 250
per year in recent years. Groups such as Energetic Bear have particularly focussed on gathering configuration information
from companies in the energy sector. We have yet to see major attacks which have aimed at sabotaging such systems
but the German Steel Mill attack from 2014 demonstrates the potential for significant physical damage from cyber
attack. The significance of the threat has been recognised by Governments across the world. The increasing trend to
using digital components with communications capabilities within control systems and critical infrastructures means that
there are substantial inter-connections and inter-dependencies. Understanding these and designing systems to be
protected against cascading failures is therefore an important enterprise.

This proposal will lead to a project which will be associated with the Research Institute in Trustworthy Industrial Control Systems.
As such its results will be communicated to the Advisory Board of the Institute -- this includes members from key
UK Government Departments and Industry. The results will also be accessible to the industrial partners of the projects
in the Institute -- these include infrastructure operators, suppliers and consultancies.

SUTD and Imperial will work together to ensure that the tools produced from this work are widely disseminated.

The wider public will benefit from the production of more secure critical infrastructures.