Budget Constrained Optimal Security Hardening of Control Networks for Critical Cyber-infrastructures
Competing schemes for security-hardening the power grid differ in their installation costs and the amount of coverage they provide against cyber attacks. Manually mapping schemes to vulnerable assets, where each asset has a unique degree of criticality in an arbitrary power network configuration, is a cumbersome process. Moreover finding an optimal scheme combination so as to maximize overall network security under a fixed budget constraint is an NP hard problem. In this paper we describe a dynamic programming solution to this problem and implement it along with logic-based models of the power grid, its control elements and best security practices as a tool-chain. The tool-chain takes, as input, a power network configuration, and the budget constraints and security schemes described in logic, determines the critical assets and automatically selects an optimal scheme combination to apply to maximize security. We demonstrate the feasibility of the tool chain implementation by security hardening the IEEE power system 118-bus test case from a pool of five different best-practice schemes.
This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.
- The following copyright notice applies to all of the above items that appear in IEEE publications: "Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/publish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from IEEE."
- The following copyright notice applies to all of the above items that appear in ACM publications: "© ACM, effective the year of publication shown in the bibliographic information. This file is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in the journal or proceedings indicated in the bibliographic data for each item."
- The following copyright notice applies to all of the above items that appear in IFAC publications: "Document is being reproduced under permission of the Copyright Holder. Use or reproduction of the Document is for informational or personal use only."