Identifying Key Cyber-Physical Terrain (Extended Version)
This addresses security risks in military tactical networks, but appears incremental as it builds on existing movement models and approximation strategies.
The paper tackles the problem of short-range network attacks in mobile Army tactical networks by introducing the concept of 'key cyber-physical terrain' to control malware spread, and demonstrates through simulation that it can identify these critical locations quickly and effectively.
The high mobility of Army tactical networks, combined with their close proximity to hostile actors, elevates the risks associated with short-range network attacks. The connectivity model for such short range connections under active operations is extremely fluid, and highly dependent upon the physical space within which the element is operating, as well as the patterns of movement within that space. To handle these dependencies, we introduce the notion of "key cyber-physical terrain": locations within an area of operations that allow for effective control over the spread of proximity-dependent malware in a mobile tactical network, even as the elements of that network are in constant motion with an unpredictable pattern of node-to-node connectivity. We provide an analysis of movement models and approximation strategies for finding such critical nodes, and demonstrate via simulation that we can identify such key cyber-physical terrain quickly and effectively.