=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1816/paper-25
|storemode=property
|title=MITIGATE: An Innovative Cyber-Security Maritime Supply Chain Risk Management System
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1816/paper-25.pdf
|volume=Vol-1816
|authors=Armend Duzha,Panagiotis Gouvas,Monica Canepa
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/itasec/DuzhaGC17
}}
==MITIGATE: An Innovative Cyber-Security Maritime Supply Chain Risk Management System==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1816/paper-25.pdf
In Proceedings of the First Italian Conference on Cybersecurity (ITASEC17), Venice, Italy.
Copyright c 2017 for this paper by its authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes.
MITIGATE*: An Innovative Cyber-Security
Maritime Supply Chain Risk Management
System
Armend Duzha1, Panagiotis Gouvas2, and Monica Canepa3
1
Maggioli, Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy
armend.duzha@maggioli.it
2
SingularLogic, Athens, Greece
pgouvas@gmail.com
3
Dept. of Naval, Electrical, Electronic and Telecom. Engineering, University of Genoa, Italy
monica.canepa@unige.it
Abstract
Despite the importance of Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs) and dynamic
ICT-based maritime Supply Chains (SCs) for ports operations, state-of-the-art Risk
Management (RM) methodologies for maritime environments pay limited attention to
cyber-security and do not adequately address security processes for international SCs.
Motivated by these limitations, we have developed and will validate a novel RM
system which will empower stakeholders’ collaboration for the identification, assessment
and mitigation of risks associated with cyber assets and SC processes. This collaborative
system will boost transparency in risk handling, while enabling the generation of unique
evidence about risk assessment and mitigation. At the heart of this system is an open
simulation environment enabling stakeholders to collaboratively simulate risks and
evaluate risk mitigation actions. Emphasis is paid on the estimation of cascading effects
in SCs, as well as on prediction of future risks.
The system is compliant with prominent security standards and regulations for the
maritime sector, i.e. ISPS, ISO 27001, ISO 27005, ISO 28000 etc.
Keywords
Maritime Supply Chain, Critical Information Infrastructure, Cyber-Security, Risk
Management, Cloud, BigData.
*
The acronym MITIGATE stands for Multidimensional, InTegrated, rIsk assessment framework and dynamic, collaborative
risk manaGement tools for critical information infrAstrucTurEs. This project has received funding from the European Union’s
Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 653212.
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1 MITIGATE at a Glance
1.1 System Overview
The objective of MITIGATE is to realise a radical shift in risk management methodologies for the
maritime sector towards a collaborative evidence-based Maritime Supply Chain Risk Assessment
(MSCRA) approach that alleviates the limitations of the state-of-the-art risk management frameworks.
To this end, we have developed and will validate a dynamic, collaborative, standards-based RM system
for port’s Critical Informative Infrastructures (CIIs), which considers all cyber-threats arising from the
international Maritime Supply Chain (MSC), including threats associated with port CIIs
interdependencies and associated cascading effects.
The RM system enables port operators to manage their security in a holistic, integrated and cost-
effective manner, while at the same time producing and sharing knowledge associated with the
identification, assessment and quantification of cascading effects from the international MSC. In this
way, port operators are able to predict potential security incidents, but also mitigate and minimize
consequences of divergent security threats and their cascading effects based on evidence associated
with simulation scenarios and security assurance models.
MITIGATE emphasizes the collaboration of various stakeholders in the identification, assessment
and mitigation of risks associated with the cyber assets and international MSC processes. This
collaborative approach will boost transparency in risk handling by the various stakeholders, while at the
same time will generate unique evidence about risk assessment and mitigation.
The collaborative approach is empowered by an Open Risk Assessment Simulation Environment
(ORASE) which enables the participants in the international MSC to model, design, execute and analyse
attack-oriented simulation experiments using novel simulation processes. Particular emphasis is paid
on the estimation of the cascading effects, as well as on prediction of future risks (on the basis of
common metrics across sectors). Based on evidence-based simulations, port operators, decision makers
and other stakeholders are able to select cost effective countermeasures and compile holistic port
security policies going beyond the port’s CIIs isolated domain, but also to ensure the ports SC security.
Furthermore, the system is equipped with real-time decision support systems, which aims at automating
the process of estimating risk and enacting risk mitigation measures. MITIGATE integrates also open
source intelligence data, including data from social media (e.g. Twitter, Reddit, and RSS feeds) and
trusted sources (e.g. NIST National Vulnerability Database), towards enhancing its threat assessment
and prediction functionalities.
Special emphasis is put in ensuring MITIGATE risk management framework and the associated
collaborative security management tools compliance with existing security standards and regulations
(ISPS, ISO27001, ISO27005, ISO28000).
1.2 High Level Architecture
MITIGATE aims to provide a holistic solution regarding risk management in the frame of Maritime
Supply Chain Services (MSCSs). To do so, several services have to be provided such as collaborative
risk management, advanced simulation and visualization of potential cyber-attacks, open intelligence
services etc. In order to archive this, we have formulated a high level architecture that comprises eight
coarse grained components that complement each other. These components include:
an Asset Modelling and Visualization component that allows users to declare their cyber
assets along with the cyber relationship and serialize this declaration in a strict format. Each
organization that participates in the MSC will use it in order to create its own mapping
which will be automatically linked to available vulnerabilities and attack-types.
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a Maritime Supply Chain Service Modelling component that allows security analysts to
model the MSCSs that are performed by their organizations while also allowing to provide
the mapping of existing cyber assets with the various processes and sub-processes that are
defined in the context of MSCSs.
a Simulation and Game Theory component that is responsible for the discovery of attack
paths given a specific asset mapping and the calculations of the best defensive strategy
regarding the protection of a specific cyber asset based on the game theoretical principles.
a Collaborative Risk Assessment component that is responsible to guide the security
analyst to perform the appropriate steps that are required for the conduction of the risk
assessment for a specific MSCS as defined in the MITIGATE Methodology.
an Open Intelligence and BigData Analytics component that is responsible to provide near
real-time notifications regarding potential vulnerabilities related to a cyber asset of one
organization that participates in the MSC through the text-mining of open sources (e.g.
Twitter, Reddit, and RSS Feeds).
Notification and Reporting component that is responsible to provide push notifications to
the security analyst regarding any type of messages that are raised from the time-consuming
operations such as the conduction of a vulnerability assessment, the calculation of risks,
the processing of an open source information etc.
IT Security Officer Port Faculty Operator Port Security Operator Supply Chain Participant
Threat Models,
Security Assurance Models,
Best Practices
Mathematical
Instruments
Web-based Access & Collaboration Layer
Statistics
Risk/Vulnerability
BigData Threat Analysis Visualization
Graph
Theory
Open Simulation Environment (ORASE)
Game Repositories &
Theory
Knowledge Base
MITIGATE Risk & Assurance PortClls Standards ISPS, ISO27001,
Models (MSRA) Models ISO27005, ISO28000,
Cloud
CCIIP
Port Critical Information
Infrastructures (CIIs)
Figure 1: High-level overview of MITIGATE system
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an Administrative component that is responsible for the management and the consistency
of the various “enumerations” that are required by all other components (e.g.
vulnerabilities, attack-types, business partners).
an Access Control and Privacy component that provides security guarantees in a horizontal
manner to all other components.
The architecture is completed by a persistency layer and a pub/sub system. The persistency layer
consists of two types of databases: one relational DB that is used to store fully structured data and one
NoSQL DB that is used to store semi-structured data that change frequently (e.g. vulnerability reports).
The pub/sub system is used to decouple the communication of the components, and more specifically,
eliminate any blocking communication that may be required.
1.3 Target Audience
The primary target group of interest consists of the cyber-security community (researchers and
practitioners) and Maritime Supply Chain participants (e.g. port authorities, maritime ministries,
maritime security agencies, cyber-security agencies, maritime logistic and transport companies,
insurance companies, customs).
In addition, inter(national) projects and organizations currently engaged in related research areas
and standardization bodies, such as IMO, NATO, ENISA, EMSA, DIGIMOVE, DIGIMARE, constitute
another important group.
2 Demo description
We will demonstrate realistic cyber-attacks that have been reported, known, assumed or suspected
in our pilot sites (ports of Ravenna and Livorno in Italy, Bremen in Germany, Piraeus in Greece, and
Valencia in Spain) against four Maritime Supply Chain Services (Container Cargo Management,
Vehicle Transport, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Transport, and Solid Bulk).
All these MSCSs might be subject of a number of cyber-threats that can be realized by conducting
a combination/series of specific cyber-attacks. In this context, malicious users are able to realize
complex cyber-attacks for the purpose of disrupting MSCs’ operations or facilitating illegal activities
aimed at obtaining financial, political or even ideological gain and benefits. For example, they can
destroy a major CII by locally or remotely disrupting, modifying, interfering or gaining access a variety
of information/documentation as well as systems. To this end, malicious attackers can launch targeted
attacks in order to gain unauthorized access to the ports’ systems and use them as stepping stone to
lunch further, more sophisticated, attacks and penetrate deeper into their infrastructure. For example,
they can infiltrate the ports’ wireless by obtaining the network identifier or through other network
vulnerabilities in order to sniff, modify or inject falsified data to achieve the expected results. In
addition, they can perform several phishing attacks by sending a number of emails to the port operators
and/or system administrators, trying to convince them either to open a malicious PDF document
attachment containing exploit code or to click on a link that will take the user to a fraudulent website
that appears legitimate but contains malicious code that exploits vulnerabilities on the web browser
(clickjacking attack).
In any case, the attackers can continue to exploit other vulnerabilities in various systems, either in
the port network or the SCADA network, to gain unauthorized access. Therefore, they can target the
port community system and takes advantage of specific software bugs and flaws that may have. In this
way, the attacker can interfere, for example, with the authorization process allowing a vessel carrying
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illegal or hazardous materials to enter and dock at the port or even to bypass the inspection procedure.
Thus, the vehicles can be transferred out of the port without being detected .
3 Lessons Learned
To ensure reliable use of the MITIGATE system in the working environment, pilot users (ports of
Bremen in Germany, Piraeus in Greece, Valencia in Spain, Ravenna and Livorno in Italy) were actively
engaged from the beginning of the project. Feedback during the beta tests revealed that MITIGATE is
promising in addressing their needs. A positive factor specifically mentioned is that the system is fully
web accessible and does not require any installation. In addition, visualization and collaborative
simulation features are added value.
Further comments and recommendations are expected during the pilot operations starting in January
2017 when the first integrated and stable version of the MITIGATE system will be released. For each
pilot site, the system will be localized and adopted to organizational structures and stakeholders’ role.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the European Commission, Programme “H2020-EU.3.7. – Secure
societies – Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens” for the support in funding the
MITIGATE project. In addition, we would like to thank all partners in this project for their contributions
and efforts.
References
MITIGATE (2015) http://www.mitigateproject.eu/
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