Hulak Y. Models and methods of guaranteeing capability and cyber security of information and communication systems of the energy sector

The dissertation is devoted to the solution of an actual scientific task, the essence of which is the development of models and methods for ensuring the guarantee capability and cyber security of information and communication systems of the energy sector in order to increase the capabilities of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UES-U) to withstand crisis situations. Energy is a high-tech branch of the national economy, it requires the use of the latest information technologies capable of providing real-time collection, transmission, processing and display of technological information for its analysis by personnel and making the necessary management decisions based on it in order to solve the tasks of managing the relevant electric power complexes. This applies, in particular, to systems for managing technological processes, dispatching control of electrical engineering enterprises, quality control of electrical energy, accounting for electrical energy, etc. Complex information and management systems of the energy sector are characterized by the existence of complex, sometimes contradictory relationships and mutual influences, the presence of a significant number of heterogeneous components that are combined into a single system to achieve a certain goal, the presence of many owners and managers in different subsystems, which leads to inconsistencies in security protection and control measures. These factors undoubtedly complicate the implementation of unified approaches to the implementation of a complex of organizational and technical means and protection measures, a number of scientific and technical problems arise, which concern: – coordination of the order and conditions of corporate protection of the information technology system, which consists of subsystems of different owners (administrators); – establishment of construction principles and security requirements for the gateway of interaction between information technology subsystems, for which various security requirements are defined, etc. Therefore, the scientific task of ensuring the necessary level of cyber security and guarantee capability of the complex critical information infrastructure of the energy sector by building a corporate segment of cyber protection and cyber resilience, as well as implementing a cryptographic protection subsystem, which will ensure an increased level of confidentiality and impersonation resistance during interaction between different subsystems, becomes urgent. The aim of the dissertation research is to increase the cyber security and guarantee capacity of information systems of the energy sector thanks to the combination of corporate protection of complex critical information infrastructure based on the development of appropriate models and methods for ensuring cyber protection and cyber resilience using an improved architecture and a decentralized approach to delimiting access in the network of the cyber security center and new cryptographic solutions for secure information exchange between subsystems of energy sector systems. In accordance with the formed goal to solve the specified scientific and applied problem of ensuring the guaranteeability and cyber security of information and communication systems of the energy sector to increase the cyber resilience of UES-U, the following scientific results were obtained in the work: 1. For the first time, based on the formation of equivalence classes, a method of decomposition of complex systems subject to cyber protection is proposed, which takes into account the possibility of information exchange between subsystems with different requirements for protecting information with limited access. 2. The model of building a corporate cyber security center of the energy sector based on a service-oriented architecture with a defined business logic and a corresponding set of functions that will ensure dynamic processing of cyber incidents in real time has been improved. The improved model meets modern security challenges and takes into account the specific tasks and functions of the UES-U. 3. The model of building a decentralized system of delimiting access in the network of the cyber security center based on the original method of secret distribution has been improved. The proposed model assumes its scaling and minimizes the risk of unauthorized access to information resources. 4. The model of building a subsystem of cryptographic protection of information gained further development, which will provide the possibility of double-circuit encryption for delimiting access in a decentralized system of delimiting access to information resources, developed and substantiated recommendations to increase the security of cryptographic protection of information of short service messages. 5. The method of evaluation and rational determination of the characteristics of the protection of the cryptographic subsystem acquired further development.