Optimally scheduled interventions in the presence of vulnerabilities for modern cyber-physical systems

Abstract

A large variety of modern technologies fade the borders between the cyber and the physical worlds. Nonetheless, the two-dimensional architecture of cyber-physical systems also enabled the proliferation of innovative attacks where traditional computer systems malware caused significant damages to physical infrastructures, such as the power grid. In this work, we propose a methodology that provides optimal intervention strategies for fixing vulnerabilities discovered in production cyber-physical systems. The main goal of the technique is to decrease the risk of vulnerabilities being exploited by malicious actors, by leveraging risk modeling together with advanced job scheduling algorithms. The proposal is evaluated through use-cases from the healthcare domain.