Integrated vetronics survivability: Requirements for vetronics survivability strategies

Vetronics in modern day military vehicles have evolved to include network enabled capability (NEC) allowing the use of electronics architectures to integrate different sub-systems. Integrated vehicle electronics (vetronics) offer improved performance, efficiency and new capabilities at the sub system, system and system-of-systems level. However, this integration is associated with magnified risk and compromise from cyber attacks. Potential cyber attacks could be from an external source where a node is accessed by a malicious intruder using NEC, or internal to the vehicle such as a passive attack waiting to be triggered by an event. This paper provides an understanding of applying survivable systems principles of preventive and reactive mechanisms to the vehicle's integrated vetronics in order to mitigate internal and external threats. Requirements are derived and a novel top level architecture for vetronics survivability is presented. (6 pages)