Cybersecurity Challenges in Large Industrial IoT Systems

To achieve efficient and flexible production at affordable prices, industrial automation is pushed towards a digital transformation. Such a transformation assumes an enhancement of current Industrial Automated Control Systems with a large amount of IoT-devices, forming an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The aim is to enable a shift from automatic towards autonomous control in such systems. This paper discusses some of the main challenges IIoT systems are facing with respect to cybersecurity. We discuss our findings in an example of a flow-control loop, where we apply a simple threat model based on the STRIDE method to deduce cybersecurity requirements in an IIoT context. Moreover, the identified requirements are assessed in the light of current state of the art solutions, and a number of challenges are discussed with respect to a large-scale IIoT system, together with some suggestions for future work.