The proposed Hub aims to address the issue of cyber security of cyber physical systems in its entirety. From analysing security vulnerabilities and developing tools to address them at various levels of system architecture, to translating these tools to deployment-ready software, to nucleating start-ups developing these tools at scale, to partnering with industries in this domain and co-development and transfer of these technologies, to training the next generation of cyber security researchers and professionals.

Securing Cyber Physical Systems

A cyber physical system can be divided into nine layers: (1) Hardware layer (processors, storage devices etc.), (2) Microarchitecture layer (execution of machine language instructions), (3) Firmware layer (instruction set for booting and security patches), (4) Operating System layer (program controls functioning of computing system), (5) Network layer (protocols that enable communication between computers), (6) Application layer (software implementing specific application), (7) Distribution layer (software to manage application distributed over multiple computers), (8) System Architecture layer (design of automation setup for CPS), (9) Physical Dynamics layer (dynamics of entire system).

The work in Hub will encompass all the above nine layers: analysing various vulnerabilities in each layer and developing tools for addressing them.