ESSecA Expert System for Automated Penetration Testing: The Train Control and Monitoring System Case Study

The importance of Security Assessment processes in railway system is a well known criticality, outlined by known compromise events. However, as highlighted in the recent reports by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), given the complexity and heterogeneity of the components that constitute a railway IT infrastructure, it is challenging to establish the overall security level, so it is imperative to adopt advanced testing methodologies to evaluate and strengthen the security of these systems. Current approaches predominantly involve manual analysis, supported only in some phases by semi-automatic tools. This work involves the application of ESSecA (Expert System for Security Assessment), a semi-automatic framework for executing security assessment processes, on a Train Control and Monitoring System providing a Threat Model, a Risk Analysis and a Penetration Test Plan to support engineers in assessing the overall security level.