18th European Dependable Computing Conference
12-15 September 2022
Zaragoza, Spain

In this talk, I will discuss the issues posed by externally accessible operational technology (OT) and the interconnectivity of devices which run critical national infrastructures (CNI). OT and CNI systems previously protected through air gaps and obscurity are now connected to the internet and bolted into IT infrastructure, thereby have a more complex and accessible attack surface. Increasingly sophisticated attacks are now being focused at these systems, as such we need to innovate new methods of protecting these systems against attacks. Many systems cannot easily be upgraded to a modern, supported alternative. Here we will discuss the rising issue of attacks focused on programmable logic controllers, Industrial IOT (IIOT) and the infrastructure which depends on their use. Removing existing single points of failure is one way to improve the dependability of ICS and Industry 4.0, working within the operational constraints of these systems.

LTE and 5G are enabling and supporting the transformation of energy systems as they strive to increase sustainability. Digitalisation and communication are leading to an increasingly connected world while AI techniques are optimizing operations. Innovations in power system services, measurement devices, architectures and legal structures place demanding requirements on the reliability, availability and performance of the communications networks supporting them. Innovations in LTE, 5G and concepts for 6G, are addressing these challenging requirements with new products and services being deployed in the field and tested in field and laboratory trials. They are leading to a new range of sustainable and local energy options for both large and small consumers, producers, and prosumers of energy as the energy landscape transforms. This presentation offers insight into these innovations and how they contribute to sustainable energy systems.

The combination of functions with different levels of time requirements in cyber-physical systems (CPS) has always been a concern and a relevant area of research that has generated a large number of theoretical and practical contributions in the implementation of embedded systems. The term mixed-criticality systems (MCS) including functions to be performed with different levels of criticality in the same system has encompassed this series of works. On the other hand, the evolution of processors, especially multicore systems, has made it possible to integrate under the same hardware platform a set of applications of different timing requirements/criticality with the consequent reduction of energy consumption, wiring, weight, etc. In this vision of a single platform running applications of different levels of criticality, hypervisors for critical embedded systems play a key role. The ability to prevent applications from propagating faults and to isolate them spatially and temporally provides very solid elements for the design, development, validation and certification of applications independently. The objective of this keynote is to show the fundamentals and the use of hypervisors for the design and development of embedded systems with enhanced utilization of processor architectures and with important advantages for application development and certification.