Dynamic risk analyses and dependency-aware root cause model for critical infrastructures

Abstract

Critical Infrastructures are known for their complexity and the strong interdependencies between the various components. As a result, cascading effects can have devastating consequences, while foreseeing the overall impact of a particular incident is not straight-forward at all and goes beyond performing a simple risk analysis. This work presents a graph-based approach for conducting dynamic risk analyses, which are programmatically generated from a threat model and an inventory of assets. In contrast to traditional risk analyses, they can be kept automatically up-to-date and show the risk currently faced by a system in real-time. The concepts are applied to and validated in the context of the smart grid infrastructure currently being deployed in Luxembourg.