STOP-IT: strategic, tactical, operational protection of water infrastructure against cyberphysical threats

Water supply and sanitation infrastructures are essential for our welfare, but vulnerable to several attack types facilitated by the ever-changing landscapes of the digital world. A cyber-attack on critical infrastructures could for example evolve along these threat vectors: chemical/biological contamination, physical or communications disruption between the network and the supervisory SCADA. Although conceptual and technological solutions to security and resilience are available, further work is required to bring them together in a risk management framework, strengthen the capacities of water utilities to systematically protect their systems, determine gaps in security technologies and improve risk management approaches. In particular, robust adaptable/flexible solutions for prevention, detection and mitigation of consequences in case of failure due to physical and cyber threats, their combination and cascading effects (from attacks to other critical infrastructure, i.e. energy) are still missing. There is (i) an urgent need to efficiently tackle cyber-physical security threats, (ii) an existing risk management gap in utilities’ practices and (iii) an un-tapped technology market potential for strategic, tactical and operational protection solutions for water infrastructure: how the H2020 STOP-IT project aims to bridge these gaps is presented in this paper.Postprint (published version

A Framework for Incorporating Insurance into Critical Infrastructure Cyber Risk Strategies

Critical infrastructure owners and operators want to minimize their cyber risk and expenditures on cybersecurity. The insurance industry has been quantitatively assessing risk for hundreds of years in order to minimize risk and maximize profits. To achieve these goals, insurers continuously gather statistical data to improve their predictions, incentivize their clients\u27 investment in self-protection and periodically refine their models to improve the accuracy of risk estimates. This paper presents a framework which incorporates the operating principles of the insurance industry in order to provide quantitative estimates of cyber risk. The framework implements optimization techniques to suggest levels of investment for both cybersecurity and insurance for critical infrastructure owners and operators. This analysis can be used to quantitatively formulate strategies to minimize cyber risk

Cyber Threat Intelligence for Improving Cybersecurity and Risk Management in Critical Infrastructure

Cyber-attack is one of the significant threats affecting to any organisation specifically to the Critical Infrastructure (CI) organisation. These attacks are nowadays more sophisticated, multi-vectored and less predictable, which make the Cyber Security Risk Management (CSRM) task more challenging. Critical Infrastructure needs a new line of security defence to control these threats and minimise risks. Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) provides evidence-based information about the threats aiming to prevent threats. There are existing works and industry practice that emphasise the necessity of CTI and provides methods for threat intelligence and sharing. However, despite these significant efforts, there is a lack of focus on how CTI information can support the CSRM activities so that the organisation can undertake appropriate controls to mitigate the risk proactively. This paper aims to fill this gap by integrating CTI for improving cybersecurity risks management practice specifically focusing on the critical infrastructure. In particular, the proposed approach contributes beyond state of the art practice by incorporating CTI information for the risk management activities. This helps the organisation to provide adequate and appropriate controls from strategic, tactical and operational perspectives. We have integrated concepts relating to CTI and CSRM so that threat actor's profile, attack detailed can support calculating the risk. We consider smart grid system as a Critical Infrastructure to demonstrate the applicability of the work. The result shows that cyber risks in critical infrastructures can be minimised if CTI information is gathered and used as part of CSRM activities. CTI not only supports understanding of threat for accurate risk estimation but also evaluates the effectiveness of existing controls and recommend necessity controls to improve overall cybersecurity. Also, the result shows that our approach provides early warning about issues that need immediate attention

A Taxonomy for Risk Assessment of Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure (TRACI)

Cybercrime against critical infrastructure such as nuclear reactors, power plants, and dams has been increasing in frequency and severity. Recent literature regarding these types of attacks has been extensive but due to the sensitive nature of this field, there is very little empirical data. We address these issues by integrating Routine Activity Theory and Rational Choice Theory, and we create a classification tool called TRACI (Taxonomy for Risk Assessment of Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure). We take a Design Science Research approach to develop, evaluate, and refine the proposed artifact. We use mix methods to demonstrate that our taxonomy can successfully capture the characteristics of various cyberattacks against critical infrastructure. TRACI consists of three dimensions, and each dimension contains its own subdimensions. The first dimension comprises of hacker motivation, which can be financial, socio-cultural, thrill-seeking, and/or economic. The second dimension represents the assets such as cyber, physical, and/or cyber-physical components. The third dimension is related to threats, vulnerabilities, and controls that are fundamental to establishing and maintaining an information security posture and overall cyber resilience. Our work is among the first to utilize criminological theories and Design Science to create an empirically validated artifact for improving critical infrastructure risk management

A systemic review of the cybersecurity challenges in Australian water infrastructure management

Cybersecurity risks have become obstinate problems for critical water infrastructure management in Australia and worldwide. Water management in Australia involves a vast complex of smart technical control systems interconnected with several networks, making the infrastructure susceptible to cyber-attacks. Therefore, ensuring the use of security mechanisms in the control system modules and communication networks for sensors and actuators is vital. The statistics show that Australia is facing frequent cyber-attacks, most of which are either undetected or overlooked or require immediate response. To address these cyber risks, Australia has changed from a country with negligible recognition of attacks on critical infrastructure to a country with improved capability to manage cyber warfare. However, little attention is paid to reducing the risk of attacks to the critical water infrastructure. This study aims to evaluate Australia’s current cybersecurity attack landscape and the implemented controls for water infrastructure using a systematic literature review (SLR). This study also compares Australia in the context of global developments and proposes future research directions. The synthesis of the evidence from 271 studies in this review indicates the importance of managing security vulnerabilities and threats in SCADA water control systems, including the need to upgrade the contemporary water security architecture to mitigate emerging risks. Moreover, human resource development with a specific focus on security awareness and training for SCADA employees is found to be lacking, which will be essential for alleviating cyber threats to the water infrastructure in Australia

Cybersecurity Risk in U.S. Critical Infrastructure: An Analysis of Publicly Available U.S. Government Alerts and Advisories

As threat actor operations become increasingly sophisticated and emphasize the targeting of critical infrastructure and services, the need for cybersecurity information sharing will continue to grow. Escalating demand for cyber threat intelligence and information sharing across the cybersecurity community has resulted in the need to better understand the information produced by reputable sources such as U.S. CISA Alerts and ICS-CERT advisories. The text analysis program, Profiler Plus, is used to extract information from 1,574 U.S. government alerts and advisories to develop visualizations and generate enhanced insights into different cyber threat actor types, the tactics which can be used for cyber operations, and sectors of critical infrastructure at risk of an attack. The findings of this study enhance cyber threat intelligence activities by enabling an understanding of the trends in public information sharing as well as identifying gaps in open-source reporting on cyber-threat information

Beyond Physical Threats: Cyber-attacks on Critical Infrastructure as a Challenge of Changing Security Environment – Overview of Cyber-security legislation and implementation in SEE Countries

States, organizations and individuals are becoming targets of both individual and state-sponsored cyber-attacks, by those who recognize the impact of disrupting security systems and effect to people and governments. The energy sector is seen as one of the main targets of cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure, but transport, public sector services, telecommunications and critical (manufacturing) industries are also very vulnerable. One of most used example of cyber-attack is the Ukraine power grid attack in 2015 that left 230,000 people without power for up to 6 hours. Another most high profile example of a cyber-attack against critical infrastructure is the Stuxnet computer virus (first used on Iranian nuclear facility) which could be adapted to attack the SCADA systems (industrial control systems) used by many critical infrastructures in Europe.Wide range of critical infrastructure sectors are reliant on industrial control systems for monitoring processes and controlling physical devices (sensors, pumps, etc.) and for that reason, physical connected devices that support industrial processes are becoming more vulnerable. Not all critical infrastructure operators in all sectors are adequately prepared to manage protection (and raise resilience) effectively across both cyber and physical environments. Additionally there are few challenges in implementation of protection measures, such as lack of collaboration between private and public sector and low levels of awareness on existence of national key legislation.From supranational aspect, in relation to this papers topic, the European Union has took first step in defense to cyber threats in 2016 with „Directive on security of network and information systems“ (NIS Directive) by prescribing member states to adopt more rigid cyber-security standards. The aim of directive is to improve the deterrent and increase the EU’s defenses and reactions to cyber attacks by expanding the cyber security capacity, increasing collaboration at an EU level and introducing measures to prevent risk and handle cyber incidents. There are lot of other „supporting tools“ for Member States countries, such as European Union Agency for Network and Information Security – ENISA (which organize regular cyber security exercises at an EU level, including a large and comprehensive exercise every two years, raising preparedness of EU states); Network of National Coordination Centers and the European Cybersecurity Industrial, Technology and Research Competence Centre; and Coordinated response to major cyber security incidents and crises (Blueprint) with aim to ensure a rapid and coordinated response to large-scale cyber attacks by setting out suitable processes within the EU.Yet, not all Member States share the same capacities for achieving the highest level of cyber-security. They need to continuously work on enhancing the capability of defense against cyber threats as increased risk to state institutions information and communication systems but also the critical infrastructure objects. In Southeast Europe there are few additional challenges – some countries even don\u27t have designated critical infrastructures (lower level of protection; lack of „clear vision“ of criticality) and critical infrastructures are only perceived through physical prism; non-EU countries are not obligated to follow requirements of European Union and its legislation, and there are interdependencies and transboundary cross-sector effects that needs to be taken in consideration. Critical infrastructure Protection (CIP) is the primary area of action, and for some of SEE countries (like the Republic of Croatia) the implementation of cyber security provisions just complements comprehensive activities which are focused on physical protection.This paper will analyze few segments of how SEE countries cope with new security challenges and on which level are they prepared for cyber-attacks and threats: 1. Which security mechanisms they use; 2. The existing legislation (Acts, Strategies, Plan of Action, etc.) related to cyber threats in correlation with strategic critical infrastructure protection documents. Analysis will have two perspectives: from EU member states and from non-EU member states point of view. Additionally, for EU member states it will be analyzed if there were any cyber security legislation before NIS directive that meets same aims. The aim of research is to have an overall picture of efforts in region regarding cyber-security as possibility for improvement thorough cooperation, organizational measures, etc. providing also some recommendations to reduce the gap in the level of cyber-security development with other regions of EU.</p

A Systematic Review of Smart City Infrastructure Threat Modelling Methodologies: A Bayesian Focused Review

Smart city infrastructure and the related theme of critical national infrastructure have attracted growing interest in recent years in academic literature, notably how cyber-security can be effectively applied within the environment, which involves using cyber-physical systems. These operate cross-domain and have massively improved functionality and complexity, especially in threat modelling cyber-security analysis—the disparity between current cyber-security proficiency and the requirements for an effective cyber-security systems implementation. Analysing risk across the entire analysed system can be associated with many different cyber security methods for overall cyber risk analysis or identifying vulnerability for individually modelled objects. One method for performing risk analysis proposed in the literature is by applying Bayesian-based threat modelling methodologies. This paper performs a systematic literature review of Bayesian networks and unique alternative methodologies for smart city infrastructure analysis and related critical national infrastructures. A comparative analysis of the different methodological approaches, considering the many intricacies, metrics, and methods behind them, with suggestions made for future research in the field of cyber-physical threat modelling for smart city infrastructure

Running Scared of SCADA: An Analysis of the Vulnerabilities of America’s Infrastructure to a Cyber Attack

Cyber terrorism is the new ever evolving enemy of our future. Its impact on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, which function within all America’s physical and cyber infrastructure, is so complex and perilous critical action must be taken. Over 75% of the world’s oil and gas pipelines are monitored and controlled by SCADA systems (Lewis 229). Factor in that almost 78% of internet attacks are traced overseas we must be aware of the 1.2 billion internet users worldwide (Verton). With over 5,000 airports, 3,000 government facilities, 104 commercial nuclear power plants, 5, 800 hospitals, 8,000 dams, and over 1,600 wastewater facilities we are all slaves to electrical power and in turn, the reliability of our cyber infrastructure (Verton). However, our biggest risk may lay in the fact that over 85% of our infrastructure is owned privately where cost efficiency flies high above systematic security. In my study I conducted more than ten interviews with high ranking government officials and also cyber security analysts. The hypothesis that our physical and cyber infrastructure are in critical danger was strongly supported by my research. Fundamentally, as technology continues to expand and systematic security becomes more necessary we must be skeptical of those that find solace in solely cost efficient initiatives