Analysis of the Sensitivity of Algorithms for Assessing the Harmful Information Indicators in the Interests of Cyber-Physical Security

Igor Kotenko,Igor Parashchuk

doi:10.3390/electronics8030284

Abstract

The secure functioning of cyber-physical systems depends on the presence and amount of harmful (unwanted and malicious) information in its digital network content. The functioning of cyber-physical systems is carried out in non-stationary conditions and in conditions of continuous exposures. This leads to the uncertainty of indicators (parameters, features) of harmful information that must be assessed in the analytical processing of digital network content. The paper proposes an approach to analyse the sensitivity of algorithms for estimating the status of indicators of harmful information observed in noise. This approach allows one to consider possible errors in the estimation accuracy. It gives the possibility to identify the allowable range of changes in the parameters of the digital network content of cyber-physical systems, within which the requirements for the assessment reliability are met. This, in turn, makes a significant contribution to the effectiveness of harmful information detection and counteraction against it. Accounting for a priori uncertainty of the indicators under various influences is advisable to carry out on the basis of expressions for the sensitivity coefficients (functions) described in the paper.

Highlights

Harmful information in the context of information security of cyber-physical systems (CPS) acquires an important role
The main difficulty in implementing the proposed optimal linear filtering algorithms, as part of the content analysis of the digital network content of CPS which operate under different levels of a priori uncertainty regarding the statistics of the processes occurring in it, is the identification of the parameters of the probability-time mechanism for changing the state of indicators of harmful information of a different kind
The accuracy requirements for finding elements of these matrices can be formulated based on the analysis of the filtering process sensitivity to errors in determining the parameters of the mathematical model for changing the state of the harmful information indicators

Summary

Introduction

Harmful (unwanted and malicious) information in the context of information security of cyber-physical systems (CPS) acquires an important role. Taking into account the fact that a person is, as a rule, “embedded” in a modern CPS, it is a question of protecting against information that can harm the mental and physical health of people and (either directly or indirectly) may disrupt the information and management links inside CPS and the CPS management processes It is known about the influence of harmful information on humans but there are technical aspects of the influence of such information on CPS. This may be due to filling the CPS data warehouses with too much extra information (glut, filling CPS resources with “information stuff”) This could be the introduction of malicious software and arrays of harmful information (spam, computer viruses, logical bombs, etc.) into the digital CPS content. This can manifest itself as automatic reproduction and Electronics 2019, 8, 284; doi:10.3390/electronics8030284 www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics

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