Enhancing Cyber Resilience in Energy Systems through Automated Attack Scenario Generation: A Toolchain Approach

A comprehensive statement on cyber resilience can be accurately assessed through proactive simulations of cyber-attacks. These simulations, which emulate real-world threats and scenarios, provide invaluable insights into an organization's readiness, response capabilities, and overall effectiveness in safe-guarding its systems and data against cyber threats. The paper presents a toolchain approach which enables automated attack scenario generation. The methodology pivots around a common data model that reduces complexity by providing an interoperable format for the diverse inputs and outputs of penetration testing tools, facilitating streamlined scenario synthesis. The framework efficacy was evaluated through an implementation of the toolchain that integrates real-world attack scenarios, effectively simulating the sophisticated steps a manual penetration tester would undertake. These scenarios were tested within a replicated ICS testbed representing key IT/OT components and processes of a simplified energy system. The presented toolchain approach allows energy companies to enhance incident preparedness, monitor the impact of the attacks on their critical systems, evaluate response mechanisms and, as a result, contributes to an organization's cyber resilience.