Modeling and Assessing the Impacts of Cyber Threats on Interdependent Critical Infrastructures

Abstract

Critical infrastructures are complex networks with physical, geographical, logical and cyber interdependencies whose disruption can cause serious impacts to citizenry and society. Meanwhile, the use of information and communications technology to manage physical processes in critical infrastructure assets has significantly increased their cyber attack surfaces. The increased threats have led to the creation of national and international cyber security agencies to promote awareness of cyber threats and coordinate responses to cyber attacks.

In 2019, Italy set up the National Security Perimeter for Cyber, a regulatory construct that stipulates measures for guaranteeing the safety and security of public and private entities that provide essential functions and services. The law associated with the regulatory construct requires the covered entities to accurately describe their networks, information and communications technology systems and related services. The 2021 Italian legislation that established the National Cybersecurity Agency requires all National Security Perimeter for Cyber entities to inform the national agency about their assets. The National Cybersecurity Agency also collects detailed infrastructure information as well as reports about cyber attacks from the entities.

This chapter describes an ongoing research effort that supports Italian legislative requirements. In particular, it demonstrates how the consequences of cyber threats can be assessed in complex scenarios using an agent-based simulator that evaluates the National Cybersecurity Agency model under ransomware and distributed-denial-of-service attacks on interconnected Italian infrastructures.