Hidden vulnerabilities due to interdependencies between two systems

Abstract

Critical infrastructures (CIs) deserve increased attention as our societies simply rely on most of the goods and services they are expected to continuously supply. Interdependencies within and among CIs have dramatically increased the overall complexity of related infrastructure systems, making them more vulnerable to cascading failures with widespread unpredicted consequences. It is vital to get a clear understanding of these often hidden interdependency issues and tackle them through advanced techniques. In this paper, the interdependencies between Industrial Control Systems (ICS), in particular the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system, and the underlying System Under Control (SUC) are identified and assessed using modeling/simulation methods by following a modified 4-step methodical framework. This paper mainly focuses on those techniques and analytical experiments developed for the essential step of this methodical framework, the in-depth analysis, i.e., applying a hybrid modeling/simulation approach and three in-depth experiments. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.