Cybersecurity solution for critical infrastructure

Troci (Towards Resilient Operation of Critical Infrastructure) will focus on protecting the monitoring and control systems which make or inform operational decisions about infrastructure based on data from many sensors.

With increasingly complex and autonomous control systems, cyber attacks on the sensors can have serious consequences. At the least, operators can lose data on the state of the system – at worst, decisions are made on false data, with potentially disastrous consequences.

According to the researchers, infrastructure systems can be attacked deliberately, or by autonomous software which seeks out vulnerabilities. One of the first major cyberweapons, Stuxnet, was designed to attack control systems in Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities but went on to infect other industrial and energy systems.

In a statement, Dr Hafiz Ahmed, head of controls and instrumentation at the Nuclear AMRC, said: “Cybersecurity infringements which target instrumentation and control systems of critical infrastructure can severely disrupt our modern way of life, which relies on direct and continuous access to water and energy systems around the clock.