DIONYSUS - Deception Networks for the Cybersecurity of Physical Protection Systems

Since February 2023, at least eight data breaches have been reported over cybercrime forums and the dark web, targeting nuclear facilities in Russia, Brazil, Iran, Tai-wan, Indonesia, Thailand, India, and South Africa. The rapid increase of malicious cyber attacks on critical infrastructures, such as aging nuclear facilities, highlights a need for new and innovative cyber defenses. In response to rising threats, Sandia National Laboratories and France's Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) (“Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety”) partnered to create DIONYSUS, an advanced security platform built on the High-Fidelity Adaptive Deception and Emulation System (HADES). DIONYSUS is an adversary deception toolkit designed to introduce critical infrastructures operators to a new approach for cyber defense. DIONYSUS combines technologies like software-defined networking, virtualization, and dynamic deception to create adaptable environments that can detect, delay, and respond to evolving threats. This provides defenders the ability to generate preemptive threat intelligence; by collecting attackers' tactical data, defenders may develop custom incident response procedures and formulate stronger, more specific defense strategies. This study deploys DIONYSUS within a Physical Protection System (PPS) in a nuclear facility as a deception capability. It discusses the technical feasibility, requirements, cost, and sustainability for operators to use deception as a layer of defense for critical networks and facilities.