Failure Mode and Effect Analysis for Cyber-Physical Systems

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are a prominent component of the modern digital transformation, which combines the dynamics of the physical processes with those of software and networks. Critical infrastructures have built-in CPS, and assessing its risk is crucial to avoid significant losses, both economic and social. As CPS are increasingly attached to the world’s main industries, these systems’ criticality depends not only on software efficiency and availability but also on cyber-security awareness. Given this, and because Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) is one of the most effective methods to assess critical infrastructures’ risk, in this paper, we show how this method performs in the analysis of CPS threats, also exposing the main drawbacks concerning CPS risk assessment. We first propose a risk prevention analysis to the Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) system, which involves exploiting cyber vulnerabilities, and we introduce a novel approach to the failure modes’ Risk Priority Number (RPN) estimation. We also propose how to adapt the FMEA method to the requirement of CPS risk evaluation. We applied the proposed procedure to the CBTC system use case since it is a CPS with a substantial cyber component and network data transfer.

Keywords

• cyber-physical systems
• failure mode and effect analysis
• risk priority number
• communications-based train control