Medical Cyber-Physical Systems Development: A Forensics-Driven Approach

The synthesis of technology and the medical industry has partly contributed to the increasing interest in Medical Cyber-Physical Systems (MCPS). While these systems provide benefits to patients and professionals, they also introduce new attack vectors for malicious actors (e.g. financially-and/or criminally-motivated actors). A successful breach involving a MCPS can impact patient data and system availability. The complexity and operating requirements of a MCPS complicates digital investigations. Coupling this information with the potentially vast amounts of information that a MCPS produces and/or has access to is generating discussions on, not only, how to compromise these systems but, more importantly, how to investigate these systems. The paper proposes the integration of forensics principles and concepts into the design and development of a MCPS to strengthen an organization's investigative posture. The framework sets the foundation for future research in the refinement of specific solutions for MCPS investigations.Comment: This is the pre-print version of a paper presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Security, Privacy, and Trustworthiness in Medical Cyber-Physical Systems (MedSPT 2017

The natural history of bugs: using formal methods to analyse software related failures in space missions

Space missions force engineers to make complex trade-offs between many different constraints including cost, mass, power, functionality and reliability. These constraints create a continual need to innovate. Many advances rely upon software, for instance to control and monitor the next generation ‘electron cyclotron resonance’ ion-drives for deep space missions.Programmers face numerous challenges. It is extremely difficult to conduct valid ground-based tests for the code used in space missions. Abstract models and simulations of satellites can be misleading. These issues are compounded by the use of ‘band-aid’ software to fix design mistakes and compromises in other aspects of space systems engineering. Programmers must often re-code missions in flight. This introduces considerable risks. It should, therefore, not be a surprise that so many space missions fail to achieve their objectives. The costs of failure are considerable. Small launch vehicles, such as the U.S. Pegasus system, cost around $18 million. Payloads range from$4 million up to $1 billion for security related satellites. These costs do not include consequent business losses. In 2005, Intelsat wrote off$73 million from the failure of a single uninsured satellite. It is clearly important that we learn as much as possible from those failures that do occur. The following pages examine the roles that formal methods might play in the analysis of software failures in space missions

Intellectual Property Topics in Open University Distance-Taught Courses

Patents lie at the heart of engineering as a permanent and ongoing record of invention. We have taught the subject for about 5 years in both UG and PG courses, written from scratch owing to the absence of textbooks aimed specifically at engineers. Most practising engineers develop patent skills on the job rather than through conventional courses. But there is a need to present such courses as early as possible in the engineering curriculum, so that graduates have a flying start in their first employment

Innovation and failure in mechatronics design education

Innovative engineering design always has associated with it the risk of failure, and it is the role of the design engineer to mitigate the possibilities of failure in the final system. Education should however provide a safe space for students to both innovate and to learn about and from failures. However, pressures on course designers and students can result in their adopting a conservative, and risk averse, approach to problem solving. The paper therefore considers the nature of both innovation and failure, and looks at how these might be effectively combined within mechatronics design education

A Review on Software Quality Forensics: Techniques, Challenges, and Limitations

Software quality forensics plays a vibrant role related to software quality, security, and integrity. The paper aims to derive a software quality forensics model through existing software quality models and their factors. The papers explore quality models, factors, approaches, tools, techniques, and standards regarding software quality investigation and confine the research area for software quality integrity breach forensics. The explore the deviations of quality attributes, standards, factors, and artifacts, it leads to further investigation of root-cause followed by digital evidence procedure for alleged software quality issues. Therefore, there is a need for a software quality forensics model and dedicated standards to fulfill the digital evidence procedure validation, satisfiable, and prosecution in the court of law in the context of alleged or illegal activity investigation quality of software. The paper has  derived the techniques, challenges, and limitations of software quality forensics based on the review of research questions

A Systematic Literature Review on Automotive Digital Forensics: Challenges, Technical Solutions and Data Collection

A modern vehicle has a complex internal architecture and is wirelessly connected to the Internet, other vehicles, and the infrastructure. The risk of cyber attacks and other criminal incidents along with recent road accidents caused by autonomous vehicles calls for more research on automotive digital forensics. Failures in automated driving functions can be caused by hardware and software failures and cyber security issues. Thus, it is imperative to be able to determine and investigate the cause of these failures, something which requires trustable data. However, automotive digital forensics is a relatively new field for the automotive where most existing self-monitoring and diagnostic systems in vehicles only monitor safety-related events. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first systematic literature review on the current research within this field. We identify and assess over 300 papers published between 2006 - 2021 and further map the relevant papers to different categories based on identified focus areas to give a comprehensive overview of the forensics field and the related research activities. Moreover, we identify forensically relevant data from the literature, link the data to categories, and further map them to required security properties and potential stakeholders. Our categorization makes it easy for practitioners and researchers to quickly find relevant work within a particular sub-field of digital forensics. We believe our contributions can guide digital forensic investigations in automotive and similar areas, such as cyber-physical systems and smart cities, facilitate further research, and serve as a guideline for engineers implementing forensics mechanisms

An Event Based Digital Forensic Scheme for Vehicular Networks

The software in today's cars has become increasingly important in recent years. The development of high-tech driver assistance devices has helped fuel this movement. This tendency is anticipated to accelerate with the advent of completely autonomous vehicles. As more modern vehicles incorporate software and security-based solutions, "Event-Based digital forensics," the analysis of digital evidence of accidents and warranty claims, has become increasingly significant. The objective of this study is to ascertain, in a realistic setting, whether or not digital forensics can be successfully applied to a state-of-the-art automobile. We did this by dissecting the procedure of automotive forensics, which is used on in-car systems to track the mysterious activity by means of digital evidence. We did this by applying established methods of digital forensics to a state-of-the-art car.Our research employs specialized cameras installed in the study areas and a log of system activity that may be utilized as future digital proof to examine the effectiveness of security checkpoints and other similar technologies. The goal is to keep an eye on the vehicles entering the checkpoint, look into them if there is any reason to suspect anything, and then take the appropriate measures. The problem with analyzing this data is that it is becoming increasingly complex and time-consuming as the amount of data that has been collected keeps growing. In this paper, we outline a high-level methodology for automotive forensics to fill in the blanks, and we put it through its paces on a network simulator in a state-of-the-art vehicle to simulate a scenario in which devices are tampered with while the car is in motion. Here, we test how well the strategy functions. Diagnostics over IP (Diagnostics over IP), on-board diagnostics interface, and unified diagnostic services are all used during implementation. To work, our solution requires vehicles to be able to exchange diagnostic information wirelessly.These results show that it is possible to undertake automotive forensic analysis on state-of-the-art vehicles without using intrusion detection systems or event data recorders, and they lead the way towards a more fruitful future for automotive forensics. The results also show that modern autos are amenable to forensic automotive analysis

Mitigating Circumstances in Cybercrime: a Position Paper

This paper argues the need for considering mitigating circumstances in cybercrime. Mitigating circumstances are conditions which moderate the culpability of an offender of a committed offence. Our argument is based on several observations. The cyberspace introduces a new family of communication and interaction styles and designs which could facilitate, make available, deceive, and in some cases persuade, a user to commit an offence. User’s lack of awareness could be a valid mitigation when using software features introduced without a proper management of change and enough precautionary mechanisms, e.g. warning messages. The cyber behaviour of users may not be necessarily a reflection of their real character and intention. Their irrational and unconscious actions may result from their immersed and prolonged presence in a particular cyber context. Hence, the consideration of the cyberspace design, the “cyber psychological” status of an offender and their inter-relation could form a new family of mitigating circumstances inherent and unique to cybercrime. This paper elaborates on this initial argument from different perspectives including software engineering, cyber psychology, digital forensics, social responsibility and law