Modeling and Simulation Challenges for Cyber Physical Systems from Operational Security Perspective

As Critical Infrastructures become more dependent on Cyber Physical Systems, their design and deployment in reliable, secure and safe manner has become more important. Such systems are bridging the gap between operational and information technologies as physical systems are interconnected and dependent upon underlying computational and communication infrastructure. The operational and information level vulnerabilities can cause physical damage and destruction in the event of system compromise. Appropriately verified modeling and simulation frameworks are therefore essential that may be incorporated from design till deployment stage of software, firmware, hardware and underlying connectivity fabric of physical systems or System of Systems. However, the heterogeneous nature of CPS limits full scale modeling and simulation in a single framework. In this study, state of art in CPS modeling and simulation is introduced for designing resilient systems with new methods and paradigms. Most relevant platforms are then analyzed for modeling CPS from mathematical, system theory, process control, interoperability and resiliency aspects. Lastly, we discuss challenges to CPS modeling and propose game theoretic approaches for formulation of operational security research through scenario building.