Algebraic analysis of attack impacts and countermeasures in critical infrastructures

Abstract

Critical infrastructure systems are distributed environments in which the mixture of technologies and interdependencies between physical and logical components lead to complex interactions. Calculating the possible impacts of attacks and the success of proposed countermeasures in such environments represents a severe problem. We propose a process algebraic technique as a means of affecting such calculations. Our approach allows us to demonstrate equivalence w.r.t. attack and defense strategies respectively. It also forms a basis for determining the efficiency and effectiveness of countermeasures. In comparison with other methods, such as attack/defense trees and attack graphs, our approach allows us to relax assumptions regarding the ordering of events by applying structural reasoning to outcomes and reducing the state space for the analysis. An obvious application is to risk management. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.