Paper accepted at ARES PCSCI Workshop

19. June 2024

Our paper “SOVEREIGN - Towards a Holistic Approach to Critical Infrastructure Protection” was accepted at the International Workshop on Physical and Cyber Security in Interdependent Critical Infrastructures (PCSCI 2024).

The paper proposes a cyber-defense platform for protecting critical infrastructure against cyber attacks, paving the way for more sophisticated detection methods using AI and threat sharing through open standards while maintaining resilience.

Abstract

In the digital age, cyber-threats are a growing concern for individuals, businesses, and governments alike. These threats can range from data breaches and identity theft to large-scale attacks on critical infrastructure. The consequences of such attacks can be severe, leading to financial losses, threats to national security, and the loss of lives. This paper presents a holistic approach to increase the security of critical infrastructures. For that, we propose an open, self-configurable, and AI-based automated cyber-defense platform that runs on specifically hardened devices and own hardware, can be deeply embedded in critical infrastructures and provides full visibility on network, endpoints, and software. In this paper, starting from a thorough analysis of related work, we describe the vision of our SOVEREIGN platform in the form of an architecture, discuss individual building blocks, and evaluate it qualitatively with respect to our requirements.