Enhancing Dutch Energy Safety: Unleashing Redundancy for Cyber-Resilient Industrial Operations at Gate terminal

Abstract

Critical infrastructures, such as the energy sector, are vital for the proper functioning of society. It is crucial to protect these infrastructures against cyberattacks on their operational technology, ensuring their operational performance, and safeguarding energy safety. There is a lack of existing research on improving cybersecurity in operational technology for increasing operational performance in liquefied natural gas infrastructure in the Netherlands, specifically when it comes to increasing redundancy in the system. In an attempt to fill this knowledge gap, this thesis implements agent-based modelling to answer the following main research question:

“To what extent does the implementation of redundancy enhance the operational performance of operational technology in the industrial processes of Gate terminal in the face of cyber threats, in order to maintain the availability of business services?”

The thesis shows that the key determinants for the effectiveness of a redundancy strategy are the criticality of the redundantly implemented element, and the degree of diversity applied. Additionally, a trade-off between the advantages of redundancy the inevitably increased attack surface can be observed: when implementing an ineffective redundancy strategy, overall system performance may degrade in comparison to the initial system conditions. The importance of an effective incident response cycle must not be overlooked. A redundancy strategy is only as effective as the capability of the system operator to prevent and deal with incidents.
Future research can build on this thesis, exploring more explicit redundancy strategies, types of attacks, and strategic defense systems, as well as the optimization of the redundancy trade-off. These research directions can help in further analyzing and understanding the impact of redundancy on system operational performance.