CYRail Recommendations on cybersecurity of rail signalling and communication systems

Railway infrastructures are moving towards more intelligent, connected, user-centric and collaborative systems. While this evolution brings many advantages for the industry and users, it also poses new opportunities for cyber-criminals and terrorists.

CYRail aims to deliver tailored specifications and recommendations for secure modern rail systems design and operation. The challenges are multiple: wide and distributed geographical display of rail systems limit the traditional cyber-protection and cyber-defence tools & practices; the heterogeneous nature of rail systems makes them vulnerable to blended attacks; the collaboration with other transportation infrastructures increases the number of points for attack; new passenger-centric services may expose rail systems to threats known in the IoT; last but not least, ICT supporting these trends are not necessarily trusted for critical applications.

CYRail addressed those challenges through a methodical diagnosis and specification process, enforced at each step of the cyber-security chain: operational context and scenarios were defined, followed by a security assessment of railway systems. An analysis of threats targeting those infrastructures was developed as well as the identification of innovative attack detection and alerting techniques. Adapted mitigation plans and countermeasures were defined, taking into account their potential impact on operations. Protection Profiles for railway control and signalling applications were delivered to ensure security by design of new rail infrastructures.

The CYRail consortium took advantage of developments in other industries (aeronautics, automotive and energy) and brought them into the railway sector, taking both similarities and specificities into account. The Consortium was comprised of a well-balanced group of 6 partners (EVOLEO, EUSKOIKER, FORTISS, UIC, AIRBUS and ATSEC) from 5 European countries (Portugal, Spain, Germany, France and Sweden) with complementary skills.

The project main targets are