Complexity Challenges in Cyber Physical Systems

11Perspectives on Securing Cyber Physical Systems

Zach Furness

INOVA Health System, Sterling, VA, USA

11.1 Cyber Physical Systems

This section will provide a brief overview of Cyber Physical Systems and discuss their relationship to related systems such as embedded systems and Internet of Things (IoT).

11.1.1 CPS Definition

Cyber‐physical systems (CPS) are “smart systems that include engineered interacting networks of physical and computational components” (NIST 2017). The term “smart” refers to the fact that CPS generally involves “sensing, computation, and actuation.” CPS typically bridge connections between operational technologies (those that perform control and actuation functions) and traditional information technologies (such as those that perform sensing and computation). The ability to automate transactions between those domains and create faster sense/response times is one of the primary advantages of CPS. CPS are not limited to single systems that bridge Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) domains. A CPS will often be part of a “system‐of‐systems” that has multiple sensor, computation, and actuator connections that share data directly, or act on the results of aggregated data across multiple sensors (NIST 2017).

The enhanced functionality provided by automated response in these systems also comes with a tradeoff in ensuring the trustworthiness of the underlying algorithms and data in these systems. Imagine an autonomous vehicle (and example ...