Towards Security-Aware Virtual Environments for Digital Twins

Abstract

Digital twins open up new possibilities in terms of monitoring, simulating, optimizing and predicting the state of cyber-physical systems (CPSs). Furthermore, we argue that a fully functional, virtual replica of a CPS can also play an important role in securing the system. In this work, we present a framework that allows users to create and execute digital twins, closely matching their physical counterparts. We focus on a novel approach to automatically generate the virtual environment from specification, taking advantage of engineering data exchange formats. From a security perspective, an identical (in terms of the system's specification), simulated environment can be freely explored and tested by security professionals, without risking negative impacts on live systems. Going a step further, security modules on top of the framework support security analysts in monitoring the current state of CPSs. We demonstrate the viability of the framework in a proof of concept, including the automated generation of digital twins and the monitoring of security and safety rules.