Evolving Attacker Perspectives for Secure Embedded System Design

In our increasingly connected world, security is a growing concern for embedded systems. A systematic design and verification methodology could help detect vulnerabilities before mass production. While Attack Trees help a designer consider the attacks a system will face during a preliminary analysis phase, they can be further integrated into the design phases. We demonstrate that explicitly modeling attacker actions within a system model helps us to evaluate its impact and possible countermeasures. This paper describes how we evolved the SysML-Sec Methodology with “Attacker Scenarios” for the improved design of secure embedded systems.