Analysis of Cybersecurity Mechanisms with respect to Dependability and Security Attributes

Abstract

Embedded electronic systems need to be equipped with different types of security mechanisms to protect themselves and to mitigate the effects of cybersecurity attacks. These mechanisms should be evaluated with respect to their impacts on dependability and security attributes such as availability, reliability, safety, etc. The evaluation is of great importance as, e.g., a security mechanism should never violate the system safety. Therefore, in this paper, we evaluate a comprehensive set of security mechanisms consisting of 17 different types of mechanisms with respect to their impact on dependability and security attributes. The results show that, in general, the use of these mechanisms have positive effect on system dependability and security. However, there are at least three mechanisms that could have negative impacts on system dependability by violating safety and availability requirements. The results support our claim that the analyses such as the ones conducted in this paper are necessary when selecting and implementing an optimal set of safety and security mechanisms.