SERC TALKS: “How Can We Model Cyber Attacks and Systems to Characterize Resilience of Critical Infrastructure Systems?”

This is the opening SERC Talk of the Spring 2022 series on “Cyber Resilience”. These talks are curated and moderated by Dr. Peter Beling, SERC Research Council Member, Professor and Associate Director, Intelligent Systems Lab, Hume Center for National Security and Technology, Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.

Abstract

Recent high profile cyber attacks on critical infrastructures have raised awareness about the severe and widespread impacts that these attacks can have on everyday life. This awareness has increased the demand for cyber resilient critical infrastructure and for proof that proposed mitigations actually increase resilience. In this presentation, we will discuss an approach to cyber modeling and experimentation that we are using at Sandia National Laboratories to analyze the resilience of industrial control systems. The approach leverages virtual cyber testbeds, threat emulation, and resilience metrics to provide quantitative resilience evaluations. Demonstration of the platform and analysis process are illustrated through a use case involving the control system for a pressurized water reactor.

Funding statement: Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

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