HyRiM - Power systems of the future

The main objective of this project is to identify and evaluate ‘Hybrid Risk Metrics' for assessing and categorizing security risks in interconnected utility infrastructure networks in order to provide foundations for novel protection and prevention mechanisms.

The project will provide utility network providers with a risk assessment tool that - in adherence with, e.g., the BSI or ICNC recommendations - supports qualitative risk assessment based on numerical (quantitative) techniques. For that matter, our method will explicitly account for the infrastructure's two-fold nature in terms of the utility network and the control network alongside it. The expected impact is thus a movement away from best practice only, towards the treatment of risk in utility networks based on a sound and well-understood mathematical foundation. The project will take an explicit step towards considering security in the given context of utility networks, ultimately yielding a specially tailored solution that is optimal for the application at hand.

The Project's Objectives:

• Definition of hybrid risk metrics and risk assessment processes to enable comprehensive risk management for dealing with threats in multiple (diverse) aspects of utility network infrastructures and to support categorisation of utility infrastructures to prioritise countermeasures development.
• Evaluation of hybrid risk metrics for interdependent utility network infrastructures to cope with attacks targeted specifically at utility network controls.
• Development of tools and methods for risk assessment, which extend existing methodologies towards the handling of new threats (e.g., Advanced Persistent Threats) arising in interconnected utility networks.
• Definition of security architectures and guidelines to mitigate threats related to human and organisational (including cyber) risk.
• Enhancing network and infrastructure surveillance systems using novel, on-demand technologies in the extended perimeter of utility networks.
• Demonstration and Evaluation of Project Results in Simulated and Real Testbed Environments.
• Increase awareness of policy makers and pave the way for new legislation and pre-standardisation efforts.

Principal Investigator(s) at the University	Prof. Dr. Hermann de Meer (Lehrstuhl für Informatik mit Schwerpunkt Rechnernetze und Rechnerkommunikation)
Project period	01.04.2014 - 30.09.2017
Website	https://hyrim.net/
Source of funding	Europäische Union (EU) > EU - 7. Forschungsrahmenprogramm (7. FRP)
Projektnummer	608090