Vulnerability Assessment of Sensor Systems

There are more and more applications of sensors in today’s world. Moreover, sensor systems are getting more complex and they are used for many high-risk security-critical purposes. Security assurance is a key issue for sensors and for other information technology (IT) products. Still, sensor security facilities and methodologies are relatively poor compared to other IT products. That is why a methodical approach to the sensor IT security is needed, i.e., risk management, implementation of countermeasures, vulnerability removal, and security evaluation and certification. The author proposes to apply the main security assurance methodology specified in ISO/IEC 15408 Common Criteria to solve specific security problems of sensors. A new Common Criteria compliant method is developed which specifies the vulnerability assessment process and related data in a structured way. The input/output data of the introduced elementary evaluation processes are modeled as ontology classes to work out knowledge bases. The validation shows that sensor-specific knowledge can be acquired during the vulnerability assessment process and then placed in knowledge bases and used. The method can be applied in different IT products, especially those with few certifications, such as sensors. The presented methodology will be implemented in a software tool in the future.