A review of cyber-ranges and test-beds:current and future trends

Cyber situational awareness has been proven to be of value in forming a comprehensive understanding of threats and vulnerabilities within organisations, as the degree of exposure is governed by the prevailing levels of cyber-hygiene and established processes. A more accurate assessment of the security provision informs on the most vulnerable environments that necessitate more diligent management. The rapid proliferation in the automation of cyber-attacks is reducing the gap between information and operational technologies and the need to review the current levels of robustness against new sophisticated cyber-attacks, trends, technologies and mitigation countermeasures has become pressing. A deeper characterisation is also the basis with which to predict future vulnerabilities in turn guiding the most appropriate deployment technologies. Thus, refreshing established practices and the scope of the training to support the decision making of users and operators. The foundation of the training provision is the use of Cyber-Ranges (CRs) and Test-Beds (TBs), platforms/tools that help inculcate a deeper understanding of the evolution of an attack and the methodology to deploy the most impactful countermeasures to arrest breaches. In this paper, an evaluation of documented CR and TB platforms is evaluated. CRs and TBs are segmented by type, technology, threat scenarios, applications and the scope of attainable training. To enrich the analysis of documented CR and TB research and cap the study, a taxonomy is developed to provide a broader comprehension of the future of CRs and TBs. The taxonomy elaborates on the CRs/TBs dimensions, as well as, highlighting a diminishing differentiation between application areas

A Cyber-HIL for Investigating Control Systems in Ship Cyber Physical Systems under Communication Issues and Cyber Attacks

This paper presents a novel Cyber-Hardware-in-the-Loop (Cyber-HIL) platform for assessing control operation in ship cyber-physical systems. The proposed platform employs cutting-edge technologies, including Docker containers, real-time simulator $OPAL-RT$, and network emulator $ns3$, to create a secure and controlled testing and deployment environment for investigating the potential impact of cyber attack threats on ship control systems. Real-time experiments were conducted using an advanced load-shedding controller as a control object in both synchronous and asynchronous manners, showcasing the platform's versatility and effectiveness in identifying vulnerabilities and improving overall Ship Cyber Physical System (SCPS) security. Furthermore, the performance of the load-shedding controller under cyber attacks was evaluated by conducting tests with man-in-the-middle (MITM) and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. These attacks were implemented on the communication channels between the controller and the simulated ship system, emulating real-world scenarios. The proposed Cyber-HIL platform provides a comprehensive and effective approach to test and validate the security of ship control systems in the face of cyber threats.Comment: 10 pages, 16 figures, journal under revie

Ports and logistics: resilience, sustainability and new centrality in the post-pandemic perspective for Italy and EU Med ports

This article is part of the Economic Geography studies and deals with aspects related to intermodal logistics with particular reference to maritime transport of containers. Ports are historically one of the key infrastructures for the Italian economy. In recent decades, along with many industrial sectors that were once driving forces for the national economy, due to the lack of adequate strategic planning, it has failed to keep pace with the rapid changes imposed on all sectors involved in the process of globalization of the economic world, losing ground and competitiveness with respect to many competing realities, both in Northern Europe and in the Mediterranean basin itself [1]. Most of the other states of Mediterranean Europe are in similar conditions, but Italy is probably the one that has lost the most ground. In this situation of strong economic and social imbalance, the covid-19 epidemic has hit Italy before and dramatically and if it had not turned into a pandemic, hitting the rest of Europe and the planet and forcing the European institutions to launch, for the first time, concrete support measures for all, would probably have represented a fatal shock for the Italian economy. By elaborating the information on statistical data and projections available in numerous international publications on the transport economy and more specifically on logistics, taking into account the reasons for the successes and failures of similar realities to the Italian one, the study offers food for thought on what to do immediately and in the future, taking advantage of the unique and unrepeatable opportunity constituted by the economic initiatives for the post-pandemic recovery, to remedy the lost ground by returning an adequate role to our world of maritime and port transport which can also be a driving force for the territory behind , avoiding ending up on the edge of the evolved worl

Sea Container Terminals

Due to a rapid growth in world trade and a huge increase in containerized goods, sea container terminals play a vital role in globe-spanning supply chains. Container terminals should be able to handle large ships, with large call sizes within the shortest time possible, and at competitive rates. In response, terminal operators, shipping liners, and port authorities are investing in new technologies to improve container handling infrastructure and operational efficiency. Container terminals face challenging research problems which have received much attention from the academic community. The focus of this paper is to highlight the recent developments in the container terminals, which can be categorized into three areas: (1) innovative container terminal technologies, (2) new OR directions and models for existing research areas, and (3) emerging areas in container terminal research. By choosing this focus, we complement existing reviews on container terminal operations

Innovation in infrastructures : an analysis of seaport innovation with an application to Gothenburg

Mestrado em Economia e Gestão de Ciência, Tecnologia e InovaçãoA Inovação tem vindo a revelar-se como uma força de destaque nas economias mundiais. Muitos autores têm vindo a sublinhar a sua importância na rutura do status quo e da sua natureza não-linear e multi-actor. Perante este contexto, as infraestruturas mostraram ser bem-sucedidas para desenvolver e implementar novas inovações, graças também ao suporte dos investimentos estatais. Tendo em conta estas características, o presente estudo foca-se nos portos marítimos, umas das mais antigas infraestruturas existentes. Ao longo dos últimos 60 anos, graças à introdução dos contendores e das ICTs, os portos foram-se tornando protagonistas escondidos de uma revolução logística global. Estes desenvolvimentos podem ser compreendidos à luz dos conceitos de inovação e infraestruturas, assim como da evolução dos portos marítimos, no contexto da história económica baseada numa ótica neo-schumpeteriana. Neste contexto, o presente estudo tem um duplo objetivo: por um lado, fazer uma revisão geral sobre o estado da arte da literatura científica sobre a inovação portuária; por outro lado, deixar um contributo no âmbito da inovação portuária analisando o caso do Porto de Gotemburgo. A análise utiliza duas abordagens diferentes: 1) uma revisão sistemática da literatura existente; 2) e uma abordagem de caso de estudo. Os resultados sugerem que a área de estudo da inovação portuária está ainda muito fragmentada e pouco desenvolvida, embora estejam a emergir clusters de autores. Além disso, o caso do Porto de Gotemburgo mostra como a complexidade dos portos modernos exige uma abordagem holística e sistémica para que se possam interpretar os seus processos inovadores.Innovation has proven to be a leading force in world economies. Several authors have stressed its importance in disrupting the status quo and the complexity of its non-linear and multi-actor processes. Given this context, infrastructures have proven to be successful for developing and implementing new innovations, also thanks to the support of state investments. Keeping in mind these characteristics, this study focuses on seaports, one of the most ancient existing human infrastructures. In the last 60 years, thanks to the introduction of the container and ICTs, seaports have become the main hidden protagonists of a global logistics revolution. These developments are understood with recourse to the concepts of innovation and infrastructure as well as the evolution of seaports in the context of neo-Schumpeterian reasoned economic history. In this context, the aim of this study is twofold: on the one hand, the objective is to outline the state of the art of the existing scientific literature about seaport innovation; on the other hand, this dissertation appraise actual seaport innovation by unpacking a real case in the Port of Gothenburg. This analysis draws on two different approaches: 1) a systematic review of the existing literature; 2) and a case study approach. Results show that the field of innovation in seaports is still highly fragmented and little developed, although clusters of scholarship are emerging. Furthermore, the case of the Port of Gothenburg shows how the complexity of modern seaports requires a holistic, systemic approach in order to understand seaports? inner innovation processes.N/

Efficient T-CONT-agnostic Bandwidth and Wavelength Allocation for NG-PON2

Dynamic bandwidth and wavelength allocation are used to demonstrate high quality of service (QoS) in time wavelength-division multiplexed–passive optical networks (TWDM-PONs). Both bandwidth and wavelength assignment are performed on the basis of transmission containers (T-CONTs) and therefore by means of upstream service priority traffic flows. Our medium access control (MAC) protocol therefore ensures consistency in processing alike classes of service across all optical network units (ONUs) in agreement with their QoS figures. For evaluation of the MAC protocol performance, a simulator has been implemented in OPNET featuring a 40 km, 40 Gbps TWDM-PON with four stacked wavelengths at 10 Gbps each and 256 ONUs. Simulation results have confirmed the efficiency of allocating bandwidth to each wavelength and the significant increase of network traffic flow due to adaptive polling from 9.04 to 9.74 Gbps. The benefit of T-CONT-centric allocation has also been measured with respect to packet delay and queue occupancy, achieving low packet delay across all T-CONTs. Therefore, improved NG-PON2 performance and greater efficiency are obtained in this first demonstration of T-CONTs allocated to both wavelength and time.Peer reviewe