Secure and efficient communication in cyber-physical systems through cryptography and complex event processing

The way we view and use technology has changed dramatically over the past decade. We now have smart devices, BigData, cyber-physical systems, internet-of-things and much more. Because technology is so present in the way we communicate and in our day-to-day activities, the need for strong and efficient security systems is extremely poignant. Cyber-physical systems integrate various components and can interact with their surrounding. Their usage in critical applications requires a robust security architecture. While methods like cryptography or steganography can cover aspects such as protecting data and communications, in order to ensure efficiency and the smart usage of resources we need a different approach. Throughout this paper we will describe a method that uses a hierarchical cryptosystem to protect communications within a cyber-physical system combined with complex event processing to optimize the security architecture.