Cybersecurity of Industrial Control Systems - Challenges and Research Directions

Overview

This Distinguished Lecture is part of the CS Graduate Seminars.

Abstract

Industrial Control Systems play an important role in monitoring, controlling, and automating critical infrastructure such as water, gas, oil, and electricity. Recent years have seen a number of high-profile cyber attacks on such infrastructure, exemplified by Triton, Colonial Pipeline, and the Ukrainian Power Grid attacks. This naturally begs the question: how should we manage cyber security risks in such infrastructure on which the day-to-day functioning of our society relies? What are the complexities of managing security in a landscape where these systems are increasingly connected to other networked systems? What challenges are posed by the convergence of IoT and critical infrastructure through the so-called Industrial Internet of Things? This talk will discuss insights from a multi-year program of research investigating these issues and the challenges to addressing them. The talk will also discuss the design and usage of realistic testbeds for studying such challenges.

Brief Biography

Awais Rashid is a Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Bristol, where he heads the Cyber Security Group. He is the Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security in Large-Scale Infrastructures and also the Director of the National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online (REPHRAIN). He is also editor-in-chief and principal investigator for the Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK). His research interests are in the security of cyber-physical systems, software security, and human factors. He leads projects as part of the UK Research Institute on Trustworthy Interconnected Cyber-Physical Systems (RITICS), the UK Research Institute on Sociotechnical Cyber Security (RISCS), the Digital Security by Design Hub+ (Discribe) and the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security of IoT.