A method for malware propagation in industrial critical infrastructures

Abstract

The main goal of this work is to propose a model for the study and analysis of malware propagation in an industrial critical infrastructure. Specifically, an individual-based mathematical model is introduced and its parameters, variables and equations are explicitly defined and constructed. This model follows the agent based modeling paradigm which makes it extremely suitable for use within the small and heterogeneous environments where individual characteristics of all devices can be captured. The main strengths of this model are its ease of computational implementation (both in hardware and software), and its ability to simulate control measures (which can be of great help for security system administrators); however, this model strongly depends on a proper identification of the parameters.