Protection of Critical Infrastructures from Advanced Combined Cyber and Physical Threats: The PRAETORIAN approach

Abstract

This work describes the PRAETORIAN system, an advanced framework for the protection of critical infrastructures from combined physical and cyber threats. It integrates components for detecting threats and generating alerts related with the physical and the cyber domains of Critical Infrastructures (CIs). These alerts are correlated by a hybrid situation awareness system that calculates the cascading effects of the attacks. Finally, a response coordination system manages notifications and assists decision making by providing mitigation actions and sharing information with the public and relevant authorities. The PRAETORIAN system was extensively validated by a large number of end users and was demonstrated in real-world environments in terms of providing support for the detection and mitigation of physical and/or cyber attacks in CIs.