SAFSEC-CPS -- Securing the safety of autonomous cyber-physical systems

Traditionally closed systems are becoming more open towards the new technological advances including modern communication infrastructures, and cloud services. Systems are no longer observed as separated units, but as a part of larger and cooperating systems. These systems make us one step closer to fully autonomous and cooperative systems that are expected to increase the production efficiency and to decrease (potentially completely replace) human effort in harmful environments. In such systems is expected to be able to gather all information needed for the normal functioning throughout the provided communication services, as well as to provide the response whenever it is required.

In order to make this happen, we need to make sure that critical properties such as safety and security are guaranteed. Since the systems we are interested in becoming open, cooperative and autonomous, it is not sufficient anymore to analyze and guarantee these properties independently. We have to be able to address safety and security within a joint effort, since they might mutually enhance, or undermine.

The objective of this project is to explore the nature of interdependencies between safety and security properties in complex autonomous cyber physical systems. This would provide us with knowledge needed to propose new approaches for joint safety and security analysis, in order to enable risk reduction. Based on these findings we plan to develop a new methodology that will guide us throughout the process of identification of safety and security risks, their analysis, and risk reduction in a systematic way.