Railway Cyber-Security in the Era of Interconnected Systems: A Survey

Soderi, Simone; Masti, Daniele; Lun, Yuriy Zacchia

doi:10.1109/tits.2023.3254442

Cited by 20 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…For example, new and more reliable derailment detection systems are needed. Cyber security is also an increasingly important topic in the context of automation (see, e.g., for cyber security [74]). An essential requirement of ATO is a new train control system and signaling systems which can handle it.…”

Section: Automation Signaling and Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Will the Railway Look Like in 2050? A Survey of Experts on Technologies, Challenges and Opportunities for the Railway System

Nold,

Corman

2024

IEEE Open J. Intell. Transp. Syst.

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The railway system can fulfil society's current and future transportation goals; compared to other transport modes, it does that with high energy, space and resource efficiency. It can deliver high-quality transport services, superior speed, safety and comfort to most competing modes. Nevertheless, its share of the total traffic is often relatively small. This study examines new technologies, their challenges and opportunities for the railway system to understand possible futures of the railway systems, allowing it to prepare ahead of time to prepare and exploit its competitive strengths and possible technological developments. In this paper, we report on multi-stage interviews of 30 experts concerning a holistic technological view of the railway system. The surveyed experts reported on perspectives from the railway operator, industry and research from Switzerland and Europe. The outcomes were categorized into supply, operation and technology aspects and evaluated by their potential for improvement, system impact of the changes, time horizon of possible implementation, and effects on modal shift. The results show that many aspects contribute to the further development of the technologies, but no single game changer could be identified. Developments are expected in automation; revolutionary changes are perceived as unlikely.

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Section: Automation Signaling and Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Will the Railway Look Like in 2050? A Survey of Experts on Technologies, Challenges and Opportunities for the Railway System

Nold,

Corman

2024

IEEE Open J. Intell. Transp. Syst.

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“…The conduit that connects the IxL systems to the ATS is of utmost critical relevance. The IxL systems are responsible for controlling the train exclusive access to a route, which is a sequence of track elements exclusively assigned for train movement through a station or a junction (Soderi et al, 2023). The ATS, or Operations Control Centre, often acts upon the signals generated by the IxL system to monitor and adjust the performance of individual trains, to ensure smooth railway service.…”

Section: Interlocking and Ats Conduitmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ATS, or Operations Control Centre, often acts upon the signals generated by the IxL system to monitor and adjust the performance of individual trains, to ensure smooth railway service. It is where the railway operators take decisions and control the railway traffic (Soderi et al, 2023).…”

Section: Interlocking and Ats Conduitmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of the key vulnerabilities of ATS systems is the lack of consensus on how to conceive such control centres, since many different Operations Control Centre (OCC) configurations have been proposed over the years, often based on non-compatible standards (Soderi et al, 2023). This is aggravated by the generalised adoption of bad practices such as postponing operating system updates and patches indefinitely or provisioning and configuring network equipment with no protective measures enabled -for instance incorrect or non-existent network segregation, using both to provide passenger access and to communicate telemetry data with track-side devices (Gordeychik, 2019).…”

Section: Main Vulnerabilities Of Automatic Train Supervision Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Railway Infrastructure Cybersecurity: An Overview

Nunes,

Cruz,

Simões

2024

eccws

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The railway infrastructure constitutes a type of operational technology (OT)-based critical infrastructure, which is expected to work 24x7, 365 days a year, and where the life expectancy of operational equipment often exceeds 30 years. In this domain, an operational anomaly compromising the OT system can cause a train accident or interrupt traffic, with potentially significant impact in terms of business as well as for passenger safety. Due to their relevance, railways are strategic assets of national interest and, consequently, targets of interest for cybercriminals and cyberwarfare activities. For instance, service interruptions may trigger ripple effects resulting in product shortages and widespread supply chain disruptions, with severe impacts for both the economy and national security. In a bid to optimise and streamline operations. the railway industry has recently started taking a series of significant steps towards digitization, with infrastructures experiencing a significant paradigm shift which, for instance, makes it possible to have centralised interlockings and Radio Block Centre (RBC) for an entire country, with geographical redundancy, ensuring the utmost availability and punctuality by moving the control logic to the cloud. Nevertheless, these developments must always be carried on within the scope of established cybersecurity standards and frameworks. This paper presents an analysis of the state of the art on railway cybersecurity, focused on the existing solutions based on the application of the CENELEC “Technical specification 50701 - Railway Application – Cybersecurity”, which is currently the latest European specification addressing railways, being designed to help suppliers, integrators, and operators to implement a cybersecurity risk assessment plan, the necessary controls, and the management of the complete system life cycle. Special attention will be paid to the conduit between the rail signal interlocking system, that controls the line signalling, and the Automatic Train Supervision (ATS) that runs in the Operational Control Centre (OCC), as this has been identified by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) as one of the most critical systems identified by the operators of essential services.

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“…While the topic of security in railway systems has been significantly explored in the literature (we refer the interested reader to [5], [6], [7], [8] and the references therein), as we said before, the industry has severely lagged on this issue, possibly due safety certification concerns. Indeed one might argue that novel CENELEC Technical Specification 50701 [9] is the first, and arguably far from too early, attempt to merge together the topic of safety and security in the railway sector [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cybersecurity Considerations for Communication Based Train Control

Soderi,

Masti,

Hämäläinen

et al. 2023

IEEE Access

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The CENELEC TS 50701 is the first encompassing standard aiming at governing cybersecurity risk management processes within the railway industry. Although the technical maturity of this framework is undeniable, its application in practical projects is still an active field of discussion among practitioners, especially when dealing the communication-heavy subsystems. Among such subsystems, signaling is among the most critical ones. Both Communication-based Train Control (CBTC) and European Railway Traffic Management Systems (ERTMS) heavily rely on wireless communications for their operation. This paper describes two cybersecurity attack scenarios regarding wireless communications for CBTCs that can impact the safety of these systems using the lens of the framework provided by the novel CENELEC TS 50701. In doing so, we discuss the implications of using such guidance, especially concerning the different interpretations found in the literature regarding zoning communication systems, to assess and mitigate the cybersecurity risk and improve the posture of CBTC systems concerning the examined attacks. Experimental tests conducted in controlled laboratory environments and high fidelity simulations have been conducted to support the cybersecurity analysis.

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Railway Cyber-Security in the Era of Interconnected Systems: A Survey

Cited by 20 publications

References 55 publications

How Will the Railway Look Like in 2050? A Survey of Experts on Technologies, Challenges and Opportunities for the Railway System

How Will the Railway Look Like in 2050? A Survey of Experts on Technologies, Challenges and Opportunities for the Railway System

Railway Infrastructure Cybersecurity: An Overview

Cybersecurity Considerations for Communication Based Train Control

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