Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COLLABS (A COmprehensive cyber-intelligence framework for resilient coLLABorative manufacturing Systems)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-07-01 al 2022-12-31
Industrial automation is expanding at an increasing pace, where this surge of innovation is driven by recent advances in information and communication technologies facilitating a “phase transition” towards “Industry 4.0”. Coupling Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) with Big Data analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in industrial automation context is what will make industrial systems intelligent, enabling them to exchange information and operate remotely.
However, the vision of future intelligent and autonomous manufacturing units is counterbalanced by an exponential increase in security risks and attack surfaces that emerge as the production systems grow ever more connected. The manufacturing ecosystem lacks a thorough cyber intelligence solution that addresses the key IIoT-related cybersecurity challenges towards a full realization of collaborative manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0. Solving these issues is important for society as cybersecurity is inextricably linked to future prospects for growth and job creation. A critical aspect of IIoT-driven systems is that they can support a change of the trajectory of the overall consumption of society. The capabilities of COLLABS can help get more out of the products that we already have, as they will be designed to be continuously and even autonomously improved, upgraded and modernized rather than being made obsolete.
COLLABS objectives are to develop, validate, demonstrate, and support a comprehensive cyber- intelligence framework for collaborative manufacturing, which enables secure data exchange across the digital supply chain while providing high degree of resilience, reliability, accountability and trustworthiness, and addressing threat prevention, detection, mitigation, and real-time response. COLLABS achieved these goals by utilizing state-of-the-art technologies and making significant scientific and technological advances in several key relevant domains.
However, the vision of future intelligent and autonomous manufacturing units is counterbalanced by an exponential increase in security risks and attack surfaces that emerge as the production systems grow ever more connected. The manufacturing ecosystem lacks a thorough cyber intelligence solution that addresses the key IIoT-related cybersecurity challenges towards a full realization of collaborative manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0. Solving these issues is important for society as cybersecurity is inextricably linked to future prospects for growth and job creation. A critical aspect of IIoT-driven systems is that they can support a change of the trajectory of the overall consumption of society. The capabilities of COLLABS can help get more out of the products that we already have, as they will be designed to be continuously and even autonomously improved, upgraded and modernized rather than being made obsolete.
COLLABS objectives are to develop, validate, demonstrate, and support a comprehensive cyber- intelligence framework for collaborative manufacturing, which enables secure data exchange across the digital supply chain while providing high degree of resilience, reliability, accountability and trustworthiness, and addressing threat prevention, detection, mitigation, and real-time response. COLLABS achieved these goals by utilizing state-of-the-art technologies and making significant scientific and technological advances in several key relevant domains.
Work performed during the reporting period addressed finalization of the COLLABS framework architecture, finalization of security packages on all the three levels of collaborative manufacturing in the first two phases (MVP and first complete version) and end-to-end integration of the framework components (second complete version).
Framework architecture: Within the activities that represent the basic setting of the project in WP1, we laid the foundation for the future project tasks by identifying the technological state-of-the-art, further refining and describing use cases defined by the GA, identifying, and describing components and elaborating architectural details.
Digital supply network: Work package 2 developed the level-3 security package of the COLLABS framework. The level-3 security package includes tools for secure data sharing, security of data flows in common production environments, development of a cognitive security framework based on machine learning, as well as design and implementation of distributed ledger safety mechanisms in the workflow for supply chain and compliance in production.
Smart factory: Work package 3 developed level-2 security components of the COLLABS framework. These components include fine-grained authorization for constrained environments, relying on distributed ledger technologies for exchanges between different involved mechanisms. The objectives of the level-2 security components are to deliver tools for Comprehensive Access control, to design and deploy technologies based on Blockchain and smart contracts applied for resilience in smart factories, to deliver the COLLABS PKI mechanism, and to design and deliver tools and services for confidential data discovery.
Connected objects: Work package 4 dedicated efforts for the development and testing of the integrated solution that constitute the Level-1 Security Package for Securely Connected Objects. This work extended on the experience gained and observation made during the testing and evaluation, addressing the span of three pillars for this task, namely a) Security and Trustworthiness at the edge, b) Remote Attestation and Secure C&C execution on IIoT devices, and c) Threat Detection and Mitigation.
End-to-end integration: Work package 5 and work package 6 contributed to the integration of COLLABS components, layers and levels, as well as testing, validation and demonstration of the minimal viable product (MVP) as well as the first and second integrated version of the framework. COLLABS’s integrated version contributes to increased availability and reliability of a smart factory’s outputs, using state-of-the-art technologies that are expected to evolve and have a lasting effect on securing manufacturing networks, devices and processes. Additionally, the framework showcases the opportunities for more effective data collection, collaborations improved performance and enhance productivity.
These achievements have been complemented by an active dissemination and communication activities from work package 7. Work package 7 has also been engaged in standardization and exploitation activities.
Framework architecture: Within the activities that represent the basic setting of the project in WP1, we laid the foundation for the future project tasks by identifying the technological state-of-the-art, further refining and describing use cases defined by the GA, identifying, and describing components and elaborating architectural details.
Digital supply network: Work package 2 developed the level-3 security package of the COLLABS framework. The level-3 security package includes tools for secure data sharing, security of data flows in common production environments, development of a cognitive security framework based on machine learning, as well as design and implementation of distributed ledger safety mechanisms in the workflow for supply chain and compliance in production.
Smart factory: Work package 3 developed level-2 security components of the COLLABS framework. These components include fine-grained authorization for constrained environments, relying on distributed ledger technologies for exchanges between different involved mechanisms. The objectives of the level-2 security components are to deliver tools for Comprehensive Access control, to design and deploy technologies based on Blockchain and smart contracts applied for resilience in smart factories, to deliver the COLLABS PKI mechanism, and to design and deliver tools and services for confidential data discovery.
Connected objects: Work package 4 dedicated efforts for the development and testing of the integrated solution that constitute the Level-1 Security Package for Securely Connected Objects. This work extended on the experience gained and observation made during the testing and evaluation, addressing the span of three pillars for this task, namely a) Security and Trustworthiness at the edge, b) Remote Attestation and Secure C&C execution on IIoT devices, and c) Threat Detection and Mitigation.
End-to-end integration: Work package 5 and work package 6 contributed to the integration of COLLABS components, layers and levels, as well as testing, validation and demonstration of the minimal viable product (MVP) as well as the first and second integrated version of the framework. COLLABS’s integrated version contributes to increased availability and reliability of a smart factory’s outputs, using state-of-the-art technologies that are expected to evolve and have a lasting effect on securing manufacturing networks, devices and processes. Additionally, the framework showcases the opportunities for more effective data collection, collaborations improved performance and enhance productivity.
These achievements have been complemented by an active dissemination and communication activities from work package 7. Work package 7 has also been engaged in standardization and exploitation activities.
Within the COLLABS project, we utilize a set of new ICT paradigms in cyber security and protection, machine (deep) learning, multi-party computation and homomorphic encryption, computing in edge and cloud and blockchain technologies, to develop an end-to-end cybersecurity framework for collaborative manufacturing scenarios. At the edge layer, we developed tools for wireless fingerprinting and identification and detection of anomalies on IoT sensory readings, using machine and deep learning anomaly detection techniques. Tools and methods for secure data sharing and secure data exchange platform include computation of sensitive data leveraging secure multi- party computation (SMC), homomorphic encryption mechanisms, as well as distributed ledger and differential privacy schemes. In addition, blockchain technology is used in level-2 security mechanisms to enhance the security of access control mechanisms, and even at the edge with blockchain enhanced attribute-based encryption (ABE) to manage the access to the data using the preassigned attributes.
During the previous reporting period, a minimal viable product (MVP) as well as first complete version of COLLABS framework were developed. In this reporting period, the first complete version was further extended and evaluated to release the second complete version.
COLLABS is addressing a crucial problem that affects a wide range of enterprises across the globe: malicious attacks to ΙIoT systems with high economic and social impact. The market analysis shows that the general IIoT market will grow at an astonishing annual rate of more than 20% for the next 5 years. This trend is an obvious opportunity for COLLABS to take advantage of the revealed key challenges and market drivers towards a holistic customer value approach by establishing capabilities to support business modelling for each market. COLLABS offers a unique solution from a technological perspective since it effectively supports multiple-level security in collaborative manufacturing between connected devices, within the smart factory as well as within the external partners in the digital supply network. Moreover, COLLABS has a strong business advantage over the existing solutions - it is highly granular and can address numerous security requirements at all levels.
During the previous reporting period, a minimal viable product (MVP) as well as first complete version of COLLABS framework were developed. In this reporting period, the first complete version was further extended and evaluated to release the second complete version.
COLLABS is addressing a crucial problem that affects a wide range of enterprises across the globe: malicious attacks to ΙIoT systems with high economic and social impact. The market analysis shows that the general IIoT market will grow at an astonishing annual rate of more than 20% for the next 5 years. This trend is an obvious opportunity for COLLABS to take advantage of the revealed key challenges and market drivers towards a holistic customer value approach by establishing capabilities to support business modelling for each market. COLLABS offers a unique solution from a technological perspective since it effectively supports multiple-level security in collaborative manufacturing between connected devices, within the smart factory as well as within the external partners in the digital supply network. Moreover, COLLABS has a strong business advantage over the existing solutions - it is highly granular and can address numerous security requirements at all levels.