| Title | Federated Blockchain-Based Tracking and Liability Attribution Framework for Employees and Cyber-Physical Objects in a Smart Workplace |
| Publication Type | Conference Paper |
| Year of Publication | 2019 |
| Authors | Ahmadi-Assalemi, Gabriela, al-Khateeb, Haider M., Epiphaniou, Gregory, Cosson, Jon, Jahankhani, Hamid, Pillai, Prashant |
| Conference Name | 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Global Security, Safety and Sustainability (ICGS3) |
| Keywords | anomaly detection, artificial intelligence, authenticity, behavioural patterns, Bluetooth, Bluetooth-based proximity monitoring solution, business data processing, businesses, chain-of-custody, complexities, composability, CPS, cryptocurrencies, cyber-physical objects, Cyber-physical systems, data collection capabilities, defence-in-depth strategy, digital forensics, Digital Witness, digital witnesses, DW, emerging concept, empirical data, employees, federated blockchain model, federated blockchain-based tracking, forensic-readiness, Human Behavior, Incident Response, Insider threart, insider threats, Internet of Things, IoT, liability attribution framework, Metrics, modern digital forensics, Monitoring, non-repudiation, object behaviour, operational efficiency, organisational aspects, proactive insider threat detection, Process Automation, pubcrawl, real-life case study, Repudiation, Resiliency, SCBE, security-by-design framework, smart building, smart city, smart controlled business environments, smart SPS objects, smart workplace, supply chain, systematic integration, Threat Landscape |
| Abstract | The systematic integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) into the supply chain to increase operational efficiency and quality has also introduced new complexities to the threat landscape. The myriad of sensors could increase data collection capabilities for businesses to facilitate process automation aided by Artificial Intelligence (AI) but without adopting an appropriate Security-by-Design framework, threat detection and response are destined to fail. The emerging concept of Smart Workplace incorporates many CPS (e.g. Robots and Drones) to execute tasks alongside Employees both of which can be exploited as Insider Threats. We introduce and discuss forensic-readiness, liability attribution and the ability to track moving Smart SPS Objects to support modern Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) within a defence-in-depth strategy. We present a framework to facilitate the tracking of object behaviour within Smart Controlled Business Environments (SCBE) to support resilience by enabling proactive insider threat detection. Several components of the framework were piloted in a company to discuss a real-life case study and demonstrate anomaly detection and the emerging of behavioural patterns according to objects' movement with relation to their job role, workspace position and nearest entry or exit. The empirical data was collected from a Bluetooth-based Proximity Monitoring Solution. Furthermore, a key strength of the framework is a federated Blockchain (BC) model to achieve forensic-readiness by establishing a digital Chain-of-Custody (CoC) and a collaborative environment for CPS to qualify as Digital Witnesses (DW) to support post-incident investigations. |
| DOI | 10.1109/ICGS3.2019.8688297 |
| Citation Key | ahmadi-assalemi_federated_2019 |
Federated Blockchain-Based Tracking and Liability Attribution Framework for Employees and Cyber-Physical Objects in a Smart Workplace