Mission Aware Cyber-physical Security
This addresses cybersecurity for critical infrastructure systems by prioritizing vulnerabilities based on mission impact, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing mission-centric approaches.
The paper tackles the problem of insufficient perimeter cybersecurity against sophisticated cyber-physical attacks by proposing Mission Aware, a mission-centric cybersecurity analysis that identifies components whose compromise destabilizes the mission, resulting in targeted resource allocation to mitigate vulnerabilities and protect critical assets.
Perimeter cybersecurity, while essential, has proven insufficient against sophisticated, coordinated, and cyber-physical attacks. In contrast, mission-centric cybersecurity emphasizes finding evidence of attack impact on mission success, allowing for targeted resource allocation to mitigate vulnerabilities and protect critical assets. Mission Aware is a systems-theoretic cybersecurity analysis that identifies components which, if compromised, destabilize the overall mission. It generates evidence by finding potential attack vectors relevant to mission-linked elements and traces this evidence to mission requirements, prioritizing high-impact vulnerabilities relative to mission objectives. Mission Aware is an informational tool for system resilience by unifying cybersecurity analysis with core systems engineering goals.