Cybersecurity of Digital Twins in Industrial IoT Environments

The integration of digital twins in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments has brought significant developments in advanced industrial systems. The integration empowers intelligent preemptive control of industrial assets. However, achieving realistic operation in the Digital Twin-enabled IIoT environment requires the development of high-fidelity models that integrate seamlessly with their physical counterparts in real-time to accurately represent the behavior, including timing and performance constraints. But, this network-based integration significantly expands the system's attack surface. This paper explores the security challenges posed by the integration of digital twins into IIoT environments and emphasizes the critical importance of prioritizing security considerations from the early stages of digital twin development and throughout the implementation. The aim is to establish a secure and resilient digital twin-enabled IIoT environment.