Cyber-Physical Security of Automated Unmmanned Systems

Cyber-attacks in the commercial and defense industries continue to grow in sophistication and intensity, outpacing the capabilities of cyber defensive capabilities. Conventional and more modern approaches to cyber defense are acknowledged as insufficient. Software-based cyber defenses are fundamentally flawed in that an attacker only has to identify one new vulnerability or implementation in order to defeat the security. In contrast, the defender must defend against all known existing vulnerabilities, as well as unknown new ones. This reality is unacceptable to protect critical systems and platforms, necessitating the development and transition of a revolutionary capability. Nokomis’ technology exploits unintended electromagnetic emissions from electronic devices, such as the computational assets which are the target of cyber-attacks.  These emissions are fundamental to the physics of the electronics, and necessarily change when a cyber-attack alters system behavior.  Emissions exploitation is therefore future proof – it will detect current, past, and future attacks as all of these must change the emission signature.  Nokomis has developed mature hardware and software capabilities to implement this technical approach, which have been proved effective to detect threats to avionics. Nokomis’ approach to monitoring the physical operation of the system and communications is an approach that can be implemented in both commercial and defense environments.  Indeed, the identified customer in the VC-25 Program Office only uses commercial aircraft solutions typically interchangeably used for both defense and commercial programs. These common defenses allow easier access to all known protections, emboldening and enabling an attacker, and requiring the transition of Nokomis’ solution to address future cyber threats.  This Phase I effort modifies existing Nokomis technology for integration with a Navy platform of interest for performance evaluation thorough pilot testing.  Results will enable transition to both defense and commercial platforms, providing a revolutionary advancement in cyber defenses. The Nokomis Embedded Avionics Protection System (EmAPS) RF acquisition capabilities have been measured to achieve a -170 dBm sensitivity at room temperature, providing access to signature data required for reliable cyber threat detection and defeat.  EmAPS combines multiple signature metrics through a proprietary data fusion approach that has been cited in prior Government testing as achieving reliable detection while minimizing false alarm rate.  This program matures and adapts EmAPS for transition to the VC-25 program office (PO) and its platform of interest.