Railway Defender Kill Chain to Predict and Detect Cyber-Attacks

Abstract

Most organizations focus on intrusion prevention technologies, with less emphasis on prediction and detection. This research looks at prediction and detection in the railway industry. It uses an extended cyber kill chain (CKC) model and an industrial control system (ICS) cyber kill chain for detection and proposes predictive technologies that will help railway organizations predict and recover from cyber-attacks. The extended CKC model consists of both internal and external cyber kill chain; breaking the chain at an early stage will help the defender stop the adversary’s malicious actions. This research incorporates an OSA (open system architecture) for railways with the railway cybersecurity OSA-CBM (open system architecture for condition-based maintenance) architecture. The railway cybersecurity OSACBM architecture consists of eight layers; cybersecurity information moves from the initial level of data acquisition to data processing, data analysis, incident detection, incident assessment, incident prognostics, decision support, and visualization. The main objective of the research is to predict, prevent, detect, and respond to cyber-attacks early in the CKC by using defensive controls called the Railway Defender Kill Chain (RDKC). The contributions of the research are as follows. First, it adapts and modifies the railway cybersecurity OSA-CBM architecture for railways. Second, it adapts the cyber kill chain model for the railway. Third, it introduces the Railway Defender Kill Chain. Fourth, it presents examples of cyber-attack scenarios in the railway system.