A survey on security enhancing Digital Twins: models, applications and tools

Abstract

A Digital Twin (DT) is a virtual representation of both cyber and physical objects. Initially, the concept was introduced to optimize manufacturing products, aimed at validating and verifying their behavior along their lifecycle. However, in the recent years and with the advent of Industry 4.0, it has also gained huge attention in the cybersecurity arena. Indeed, using a DT is seen as an strategy to automate, monitor, simulate, and diagnose cyber–physical systems behavior, aimed at making them to be secure. The DT can provide security in multiple domains such as manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, construction, smart grid, smart cities, and smart transportation. The fundamentals of a DT is a combination of data and a model of the system. To this end, this survey aims to explore current efforts on DT modeling techniques, and how these DT models capture the behavior of the system to enhance cybersecurity. The study focuses on the construction of behavioral models, techniques, tools, and technologies of DT used for specific security applications. The purpose of the discussion carried out in this survey is to illustrate the reader on how these behavioral models adapt to different security applications. In addition, the paper also analyzes and classifies current DT literature based on use cases, type of DT study, tools, and various DT operation modes with their specific security application. The findings of this survey describe security applications being enhanced by DT, and how the combination of key technologies facilitating Industry 4.0 (i.e., AI, IoT, Big Data and Cloud Computing, among others), are accelerating the adoption of DT as a solution for next generation security applications. Finally, this survey highlights relevant research gaps that need to be addressed before the wide adoption of DT in cybersecurity.

The work leading to this publication was partially co-funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under grant PID2021-124463OB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF A way of making Europe, by the Catalan Government under contract 2021 SGR 00326, as well as by the European Union’s Horizon Europe under the HE COBALT project , Grant Agreement no. 101119602.

Peer Reviewed

Postprint (published version)