Cyber-physical Vulnerability Assessment in Manufacturing Systems

The rampant increase in frequency and complexity of cyber-attacks against manufacturing firms, has motivated the development of identification and mitigation techniques for cyber-physical vulnerabilities in manufacturing. While the field of cybersecurity assessment approaches is expansive, there is no literature aimed at assessing cyber-physical vulnerabilities for manufacturing systems. In response, this paper provides a framework for systematically identifying cyber-physical vulnerabilities in manufacturing systems. The proposed approach employs intersection mapping to identify cyber-physical vulnerabilities in manufacturing. A cyber-physical vulnerability impact analysis using decision trees then provides the manufacturer with a stoplight scale between low, medium, and high levels of cyber-physical vulnerability for each analyzed production process. The stoplight scale allows manufacturers to interpret assessment results in an intuitive way. Finally, the paper provides a case study of the proposed approach at an applied manufacturing research facility and provides general recommendations to securing similar facilities from cyber-physical attacks.