Wednesday 16 April 2025
A team of researchers has developed a new framework that aims to improve the safety and security of complex systems, such as satellite operations. The system, known as Attack-Fault-Defense Trees (AFDT), is designed to analyze the interplay between failures and attacks in these systems.
Complex systems are vulnerable to both human error and cyber threats. For instance, a software bug could cause a spacecraft to malfunction, while a cyber attack could compromise its navigation system. Currently, safety and security experts use separate frameworks to analyze these risks, but this approach can be limited because it doesn’t account for the intricate relationships between failures and attacks.
AFDT is designed to bridge this gap by modeling both safety failures and security threats within a single framework. The system uses trees to represent the possible paths that a failure or attack could take through the system. Each node in the tree represents a specific event, such as a software bug or a cyber attack, while each edge between nodes represents the dependencies between these events.
By analyzing these trees, experts can identify the most critical vulnerabilities in the system and develop targeted countermeasures to mitigate them. For example, if an AFDT analysis reveals that a specific software bug is likely to cause a spacecraft to malfunction, engineers could focus on fixing this bug rather than trying to address every possible failure scenario.
The researchers behind AFDT have applied their framework to a case study of a satellite ground segment system, which is responsible for managing communication between satellites and the rest of the world. The analysis revealed several critical vulnerabilities in the system, including weaknesses in its authentication protocols and software bugs that could cause data corruption.
By applying AFDT to this system, experts were able to identify the most effective countermeasures to mitigate these risks. For instance, implementing additional authentication checks and fixing the software bugs reduced the likelihood of a successful attack or failure.
AFDT has significant implications for the development of complex systems in various industries, from aerospace to finance. By integrating safety and security analysis into a single framework, experts can develop more resilient systems that are better equipped to withstand both human error and cyber threats.
The researchers behind AFDT plan to continue developing their framework and applying it to other case studies. As the complexity of modern systems continues to grow, the need for robust risk assessment and mitigation strategies will only increase. By providing a unified approach to safety and security analysis, AFDT has the potential to revolutionize the way we design and operate complex systems.
Cite this article: “Unraveling the Web of Risk: A Novel Framework for Integrating Safety and Security in Cyber-Physical Systems”, The Science Archive, 2025.
Complexity, Safety, Security, Cyber Threats, Risk Assessment, Mitigation Strategies, Attack-Fault-Defense Trees, Satellite Operations, Systems Engineering, Resilience.
