Investigating a novel approach for cybersecurity risk analysis with application to remote pilotage operations

Abstract

Remote pilotage constitutes a novel type of service aiming at reduction of operational costs and safety improvement. However, the increased inter-connectivity of remote pilotage renders it vulnerable to cyberattacks. In this paper, we investigate a novel approach to cybersecurity risk analysis, which integrates System-Theoretic Process Analysis method, Spoofing, Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, and Elevation of Privilege (STRIDE) method, SysML, MITRE ATT&CK, and ranking method. To integrate the methods, we apply a series of relevant adjustments and amendments. As a result, we are able to investigate multiple facets of cyber risk, identify the most critical issues and propose relevant risk control measures. For the remote pilotage, the most important STRIDE attacks involve Spoofing, Tampering, and Denial of Service attacks, whilst the most critical MITRE ATT&CK attack techniques are the use of default credentials, the exploitation of public-facing applications, and replication through removable media, if general hacker profile is considered for the attack.