Improving the resilience of cyber-physical systems under strategic adversaries

Renewable energy resources challenge traditional energy system operations by substituting the stability and predictability of fossil fuel based generation with the unreliability and uncertainty of wind and solar power. Rising demand for green energy drives grid operators to integrate sensors, smart meters, and distributed control to compensate for this uncertainty and improve the operational efficiency of the grid. Real-time negotiations enable producers and consumers to adjust power loads during shortage periods, such as an unexpected outage or weather event, and to adapt to time-varying energy needs. While such systems improve grid performance, practical implementation challenges can derail the operation of these distributed cyber-physical systems. Network disruptions introduce instability into control feedback systems, and strategic adversaries can manipulate power markets for financial gain. This dissertation analyzes the impact of these outages and adversaries on cyber-physical systems and provides methods for improving resilience, with an emphasis on distributed energy systems. First, a financial model of an interdependent energy market lays the groundwork for profit-oriented attacks and defenses, and a game theoretic strategy optimizes attack plans and defensive investments in energy systems with multiple independent actors. Then attacks and defenses are translated from a theoretical context to a real-time energy market via denial of service (DoS) outages and moving target defenses. Analysis on two market mechanisms shows how adversaries can disrupt market operation, destabilize negotiations, and extract profits by attacking network links and disrupting communication. Finally, a low-cost DoS defense technique demonstrates a method that energy systems may use to defend against attacks

Improving cyber security in industrial control system environment.

Integrating industrial control system (ICS) with information technology (IT) and internet technologies has made industrial control system environments (ICSEs) more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Increased connectivity has brought about increased security threats, vulnerabilities, and risks in both technology and people (human) constituents of the ICSE. Regardless of existing security solutions which are chiefly tailored towards technical dimensions, cyber-attacks on ICSEs continue to increase with a proportionate level of consequences and impacts. These consequences include system failures or breakdowns, likewise affecting the operations of dependent systems. Impacts often include; marring physical safety, triggering loss of lives, causing huge economic damages, and thwarting the vital missions of productions and businesses. This thesis addresses uncharted solution paths to the above challenges by investigating both technical and human-factor security evaluations to improve cyber security in the ICSE. An ICS testbed, scenario-based, and expert opinion approaches are used to demonstrate and validate cyber-attack feasibility scenarios. To improve security of ICSs, the research provides: (i) an adaptive operational security metrics generation (OSMG) framework for generating suitable security metrics for security evaluations in ICSEs, and a list of good security metrics methodology characteristics (scope-definitive, objective-oriented, reliable, simple, adaptable, and repeatable), (ii) a technical multi-attribute vulnerability (and impact) assessment (MAVCA) methodology that considers and combines dynamic metrics (temporal and environmental) attributes of vulnerabilities with the functional dependency relationship attributes of the vulnerability host components, to achieve a better representation of exploitation impacts on ICSE networks, (iii) a quantitative human-factor security (capability and vulnerability) evaluation model based on human-agent security knowledge and skills, used to identify the most vulnerable human elements, identify the least security aspects of the general workforce, and prioritise security enhancement efforts, and (iv) security risk reduction through critical impact point assessment (S2R-CIPA) process model that demonstrates the combination of technical and human-factor security evaluations to mitigate risks and achieve ICSE-wide security enhancements. The approaches or models of cyber-attack feasibility testing, adaptive security metrication, multi-attribute impact analysis, and workforce security capability evaluations can support security auditors, analysts, managers, and system owners of ICSs to create security strategies and improve cyber incidence response, and thus effectively reduce security risk.PhD in Manufacturin

A Smart, Flexible Energy System : The UK Energy Research Centre's (UKERC) Response to the Ofgem / BEIS Call for Evidence

We welcome the attention being paid by Ofgem and BEIS to the need for flexibility in Britain’s electricity system. In our view the main reason to support electricity system flexibility is that it can help minimise the costs of meeting the UK’s statutory climate targets whilst ensuring that system security is not compromised. The electricity system’s ability to adapt to changing demand in timescales of years down to minutes and varying availability of power from different resources will be extremely important to meeting these policy goals. Furthermore, action is needed so that those consumers that are best able to adapt their patterns of use of electricity have sufficient incentives and rewards for doing so. One manifestation of the main goal in accommodating future generation and demand is an objective to maximise the utilisation (across each year of operation) of electricity system assets, i.e. generators, network components and storage facilities. Whilst the title of the call for evidence focuses on ‘a smart, flexible energy system’, most of the raised relate to the electricity system. We have therefore focused most of our responses on electricity rather than the energy system as a whole. Our responses are selective. We have only answered those questions where we can offer relevant evidence, based on our research and expertise

Natural Selection, Adaptive Evolution and Diversity in Computational Ecosystems

The central goal of this thesis is to provide additional criteria towards implementing open-ended evolution in an artificial system. Methods inspired by biological evolution are frequently applied to generate autonomous agents too complex to design by hand. Despite substantial progress in the area of evolutionary computation, additional efforts are needed to identify a coherent set of requirements for a system capable of exhibiting open-ended evolutionary dynamics. The thesis provides an extensive discussion of existing models and of the major considerations for designing a computational model of evolution by natural selection. Thus, the work in this thesis constitutes a further step towards determining the requirements for such a system and introduces a concrete implementation of an artificial evolution system to evaluate the developed suggestions. The proposed system improves upon existing models with respect to easy interpretability of agent behaviour, high structural freedom, and a low-level sensor and effector model to allow numerous long-term evolutionary gradients. In a series of experiments, the evolutionary dynamics of the system are examined against the set objectives and, where appropriate, compared with existing systems. Typical agent behaviours are introduced to convey a general overview of the system dynamics. These behaviours are related to properties of the respective agent populations and their evolved morphologies. It is shown that an intuitive classification of observed behaviours coincides with a more formal classification based on morphology. The evolutionary dynamics of the system are evaluated and shown to be unbounded according to the classification provided by Bedau and Packard’s measures of evolutionary activity. Further, it is analysed how observed behavioural complexity relates to the complexity of the agent-side mechanisms subserving these behaviours. It is shown that for the concrete definition of complexity applied, the average complexity continually increases for extended periods of evolutionary time. In combination, these two findings show how the observed behaviours are the result of an ongoing and lasting adaptive evolutionary process as opposed to being artifacts of the seeding process. Finally, the effect of variation in the system on the diversity of evolved behaviour is investigated. It is shown that coupling individual survival and reproductive success can restrict the available evolutionary trajectories in more than the trivial sense of removing another dimension, and conversely, decoupling individual survival from reproductive success can increase the number of evolutionary trajectories. The effect of different reproductive mechanisms is contrasted with that of variation in environmental conditions. The diversity of evolved strategies turns out to be sensitive to the reproductive mechanism while being remarkably robust to the variation of environmental conditions. These findings emphasize the importance of being explicit about the abstractions and assumptions underlying an artificial evolution system, particularly if the system is intended to model aspects of biological evolution

Automated highway systems : platoons of vehicles viewed as a multiagent system

Tableau d'honneur de la Faculté des études supérieures et postdoctorales, 2005-2006La conduite collaborative est un domaine lié aux systèmes de transport intelligents, qui utilise les communications pour guider de façon autonome des véhicules coopératifs sur une autoroute automatisée. Depuis les dernières années, différentes architectures de véhicules automatisés ont été proposées, mais la plupart d’entre elles n’ont pas, ou presque pas, attaqué le problème de communication inter véhicules. À l’intérieur de ce mémoire, nous nous attaquons au problème de la conduite collaborative en utilisant un peloton de voitures conduites par des agents logiciels plus ou moins autonomes, interagissant dans un même environnement multi-agents: une autoroute automatisée. Pour ce faire, nous proposons une architecture hiérarchique d’agents conducteurs de voitures, se basant sur trois couches (couche de guidance, couche de management et couche de contrôle du trafic). Cette architecture peut être utilisée pour développer un peloton centralisé, où un agent conducteur de tête coordonne les autres avec des règles strictes, et un peloton décentralisé, où le peloton est vu comme une équipe d’agents conducteurs ayant le même niveau d’autonomie et essayant de maintenir le peloton stable.Collaborative driving is a growing domain of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) that makes use of communications to autonomously guide cooperative vehicles on an Automated Highway System (AHS). For the past decade, different architectures of automated vehicles have been proposed, but most of them did not or barely addressed the inter-vehicle communication problem. In this thesis, we address the collaborative driving problem by using a platoon of cars driven by more or less autonomous software agents interacting in a Multiagent System (MAS) environment: the automated highway. To achieve this, we propose a hierarchical driving agent architecture based on three layers (guidance layer, management layer and traffic control layer). This architecture can be used to develop centralized platoons, where the driving agent of the head vehicle coordinates other driving agents by applying strict rules, and decentralized platoons, where the platoon is considered as a team of driving agents with a similar degree of autonomy, trying to maintain a stable platoon

Internet of Things From Hype to Reality

The Internet of Things (IoT) has gained significant mindshare, let alone attention, in academia and the industry especially over the past few years. The reasons behind this interest are the potential capabilities that IoT promises to offer. On the personal level, it paints a picture of a future world where all the things in our ambient environment are connected to the Internet and seamlessly communicate with each other to operate intelligently. The ultimate goal is to enable objects around us to efficiently sense our surroundings, inexpensively communicate, and ultimately create a better environment for us: one where everyday objects act based on what we need and like without explicit instructions

U.S. strategic cyber deterrence options

The U.S. government appears incapable of creating an adequate strategy to alter the behavior of the wide variety of malicious actors seeking to inflict harm or damage through cyberspace. This thesis provides a systematic analysis of contemporary deterrence strategies and offers the U.S. the strategic option of active cyber defense designed for continuous cybered conflict. It examines the methods and motivations of the wide array of malicious actors operating in the cyber domain. The thesis explores how the theories of strategy and deterrence underpin the creation of strategic deterrence options and what role deterrence plays with respect to strategies, as a subset, a backup, an element of one or another strategic choice. It looks at what the government and industry are doing to convince malicious actors that their attacks will fail and that risk of consequences exists. The thesis finds that contemporary deterrence strategies of retaliation, denial and entanglement lack the conditions of capability, credibility, and communications that are necessary to change the behavior of malicious actors in cyberspace. This research offers a midrange theory of active cyber defense as a way to compensate for these failings through internal systemic resilience and tailored disruption capacities that both frustrate and punish the wide range of malicious actors regardless of origin or intentions. The thesis shows how active cyber defense is technically capable and legally viable as an alternative strategy in the U.S. to strengthen the deterrence of cyber attacks

Digital Transformation

The amount of literature on Digital Transformation is staggering—and it keeps growing. Why, then, come out with yet another such document? Moreover, any text aiming at explaining the Digital Transformation by presenting a snapshot is going to become obsolete in a blink of an eye, most likely to be already obsolete at the time it is first published. The FDC Initiative on Digital Reality felt there is a need to look at the Digital Transformation from the point of view of a profound change that is pervading the entire society—a change made possible by technology and that keeps changing due to technology evolution opening new possibilities but is also a change happening because it has strong economic reasons. The direction of this change is not easy to predict because it is steered by a cultural evolution of society, an evolution that is happening in niches and that may expand rapidly to larger constituencies and as rapidly may fade away. This creation, selection by experimentation, adoption, and sudden disappearance, is what makes the whole scenario so unpredictable and continuously changing.The amount of literature on Digital Transformation is staggering—and it keeps growing. Why, then, come out with yet another such document? Moreover, any text aiming at explaining the Digital Transformation by presenting a snapshot is going to become obsolete in a blink of an eye, most likely to be already obsolete at the time it is first published. The FDC Initiative on Digital Reality felt there is a need to look at the Digital Transformation from the point of view of a profound change that is pervading the entire society—a change made possible by technology and that keeps changing due to technology evolution opening new possibilities but is also a change happening because it has strong economic reasons. The direction of this change is not easy to predict because it is steered by a cultural evolution of society, an evolution that is happening in niches and that may expand rapidly to larger constituencies and as rapidly may fade away. This creation, selection by experimentation, adoption, and sudden disappearance, is what makes the whole scenario so unpredictable and continuously changing