Modeling and analysis of trustworthy systems using extensions of network reliability

Modern networked computer systems face an ever-increasing threat of cyber-attacks, whose impacts may range from data loss, financial loss, equipment damage, and in the extreme cases such as safety-critical systems, loss of human lives. Defending such systems is a daunting task, in part due to their complexity and dynamicity and in part due to the uncertainty and constantly evolving nature of cyber-attacks. Facing such a challenge, network defenders need to know how much time, money, and other resources to invest in cyber-defense. Furthermore, given a defense budget, they also need a way to rank the effectiveness of different defense solutions in terms of risk reduction. These questions naturally arise from the domain of risk analysis. However, cybersecurity risk management (CSRM) as a relatively young field lacks sound methods to address the peculiarities and unique challenges of cybersecurity. To that end, this thesis organizes efforts to answer a fundamental question, "how to accurately and efficiently estimate the risk of cyber-attacks against networks?'' As we will see in subsequent chapters, answering this question requires a multidisciplinary approach encompassing network security, graph theory, probabilistic risk assessment, and Monte Carlo simulation. The results of the study are different modeling, analytical, and numerical techniques that can be plugged into a CSRM framework. Together, they help defenders make timely, optimal, and risk-informed decisions in a proactive and reactive fashion--i.e., before and after the event of a network breach. In addition, some techniques can be generalized to a broader class of dependability problems, such as reliability analysis of large-scale systems.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Nguyen, Hoang Hai

Contributors dc:contributor

• Nicol, David M
• Borisov, Nikita
• Iyer, Ravishankar
• Srikant, Rayadurgam

• Network Security
• Uncertain Graph
• Probabilistic Risk Assessment
• Simulation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Hoang Hai Nguyen

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117730

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F117730