Strategy for Security Certification of High Assurance Industrial Automation and Control Systems

Abstract

High assurance Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are the supporting pillars of the critical infrastructure. They support the power grid, the water supply, transportation systems and many other devices, where failure or undefined behaviour lead to risk for loss of life, danger to the environment and defective operational safety of production. Rigorous testing practices have assured reliable behaviour even for failure scenarios in their predictable environments. However, previously isolated systems have become connected to the Internet and expose an attack surface that is hard to predict. While the safety of high assurance CPS is well tested with a controlled residual risk, security risks will rise throughout the deployment of a system. Hence, this paper describes research for a testing methodology to tackle emerging threats and preserve certified security assurance.