Trust-but-Verify in Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract

Cyber-physical systems can incorporate modern technological mechanisms to harden the security of their information technology (IT) elements. However, the operational technology (OT) elements at the edge are not directly addressed by IT solutions. In this talk, we visit the core problem of adding verification of trust to existing cyber-physical systems via vetting-based verification of standards and via dynamic, passive, runtime monitoring of sensor streams to identify, characterize and monitor elements beyond the conventional IT surfaces. We illustrate how recent advances including digital twins, natural language processing and machine learning are directly useful in advancing this trust-but-verify approach to security and resilience of cyber-physical systems.

Trust-but-Verify in Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber-physical systems span a wide spectrum, from long-lived legacy systems to more modern installations. Trust is an issue that arises across the spectrum, albeit with different variants of goals and constraints. On the one end of the spectrum, legacy systems are characterized by function-based designs in which trust is an implicitly in-built concept…

Kalyan Perumalla

PDF Cite Slides DOI

Kalyan Perumalla

Kalyan Perumalla is Founder and President of Discrete Computing, Inc. He led advanced research and development at ORNL and holds senior faculty appointments at UTK, GT, and UNL.