Cybersecurity and secure software deployment are issues that cut across multiple sectors — aerospace, defense, energy, critical infrastructure, industrial automation, medical devices, telecommunications, and more. What these disparate sectors have in common is that a malicious, network-borne intrusion can cause untold damage, whether financial or physical, and even threaten human safety. Fortunately, there are security-strengthening techniques and solutions for cybersecurity research that can apply in all of these areas. Creating and testing security solutions is more effectively performed using virtual hardware and system simulation technology, rather than using the live systems that are being subjected to attacks.
So how can you perform forensics if sophisticated malware is designed to thwart attempts to investigate? How can you detect and remedy vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure systems composed of special-purpose embedded devices? How, in effect, can you become smarter than intruders?
If expense were no object, you could build a so-called “cyber range,” a completely isolated network of physical computers whose sole purpose is testing cyber malware and countermeasures — comparable to a golf range for swing practice or a firing range for target practice. But this undertaking is usually very expensive, requiring physical equipment — whether that’s an entire aircraft cockpit, power plant equipment, or operating room instruments — all wired together in a lab. The cost and physical nature of a cyber range limit its capacity, which is often significantly lower than the actual need. Furthermore, cyber ranges typically require special skills associated with the unique characteristics and interfaces of a particular system. Given these constraints and the resulting value, a physical cyber range is neither sufficient nor cost-effective for many organizations.
A less costly, more flexible, and more effective alternative is to use virtual hardware and full system simulation technology. There are two advantages to using virtual hardware and simulation:
- Tests can be performed that are not possible on physical hardware — for example, “tricking” malware into behaving in certain ways, thereby exposing itself and making it impossible to hide.
- A virtual cyber range can be created, fully scaled out as much as necessary, with all the variants needed to explore the systems, and accessible by any engineer on the cyber research and development team.
Wind River® Simics® exemplifies this type of technology. Simics is a full system simulator; it simulates not only processors and boards, but complete networked systems, on which the full software stack runs unmodified, including the BIOS, firmware, operating system, and software applications. Simics virtual platforms simulate target hardware on which the software is intended to run.
Simics has proven to be an effective cybersecurity research and development tool in the aerospace and defense sectors, and that experience is easily transferable to other industries. Simics can be used to support R&D in a variety of ways:
- Undetectable Analysis
- Studying Attacks: Checkpoints and Reverse Execution
- Fault Injection
- Full Inspection
- Observing Future Behavior with Hypersimulation
- No Source Code Required
Increasing automation, digital information, and interconnection of critical systems all raise the complexity of developing and maintaining secure systems. Developers of critical systems need tools that can help them stay a step ahead of increasingly sophisticated attackers. System simulation technology provides an efficient and effective means of researching, analyzing, and testing a wide variety of attack methods and security countermeasures in a flexible and scalable environment, and in ways that would simply not be feasible with physical systems. In a world that is ever more dependent on the safe and reliable performance of interconnected systems, simulation gives cyber professionals a way to gain the upper hand.
To learn more about creating effective security with simulation technology and Wind River Simics, check out the white paper, Cybersecurity and Secure Deployments.