Threat modelling DPI components
Identity, payment and exchange components are threat modelled to find where attacks could compromise many users at once.
GCRI · Digital Public Infrastructure
Cybersecurity for DPI
Cybersecurity and cryptography protect public digital infrastructure and the personal data it holds. In this field the focus is protecting identity and payment systems, securing data exchange and preparing for attacks on systems that whole populations depend on.
01Contents
Cybersecurity for DPI in five parts.
02Application
What cybersecurity and cryptography does here.
Cybersecurity and cryptography protect information systems and data from unauthorised access, disruption and manipulation. They address threats that can spread rapidly across interconnected digital and physical systems. In digital public infrastructure and cyber and digital resilience, cybersecurity analysis identifies how a single compromise can propagate across sectors that share software, vendors or networks. It informs resilience requirements and cyber insurance. The canonical description is on the STEM Commons.
Protecting identity databases
Identity data are protected through minimisation, encryption, access controls and monitoring, with breach response planned.
Cryptographic agility for long-lived systems
Systems expected to run for decades are designed so that cryptographic algorithms can be replaced, including for post-quantum migration.
03Monitor
Security assessment.
The screen a team would use to follow this method: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.
Security assessment
Digital public infrastructure · Cybersecurity for DPI · Run R-9610
Two high findingsGCRI · Digital Public Infrastructure
Findings
| Weak key rotation | Identity service | High | PR.AA | Open |
| Unpatched gateway | Edge | High | PR.PS | Fixing |
| Logging gap | Payments API | Medium | DE.CM | Open |
| Stale accounts | Directory | Low | PR.AA | Closed |
Method card
- Method
- Cybersecurity and cryptography
- Framework
- CSF 2.0 functions
- Scope
- 39 assets
- Label
- MODELLED
Control coverage by function
04Data
What the method consumes.
Datasets and records used by cybersecurity and cryptography on this platform, with the role each plays and the label its values carry. Sources are listed in the source register.
| Data | Role | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Threat intelligence | Threats | REPORTED |
| Security test results | Weaknesses | OBSERVED |
| Incident records | Lessons | REPORTED |
05Simulator
A cascade through interdependent networks.
A hazard footprint takes out co-located assets in every layer; fragmentation, dependency between layers and overload of the survivors then spread the failure. The 3D view separates the layers by depth. Teaching model with stated illustrative values, not a prediction.
Controls
- Assets per layer
- 18
- Hazard footprint
- 8% of area
- Assets that depend on another layer
- 60%
- Spare capacity (tolerance)
- 30%
Readouts
- Assets hit by the hazard
- 11%
- Assets still working
- 7%
- Amplification of the initial damage
- 8.3 times
- Steps to settle
- 3
Numbers, methods and sources
| Step | Data centres working (%) | Networks working (%) | Power working (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 89 | 89 | 89 |
| 1 | 39 | 33 | 50 |
| 2 | 11 | 6 | 11 |
| 3 | 6 | 6 | 11 |
Methods
- Interdependent networks Buldyrev and others (2010), Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks, Nature 464
- Overload cascades Motter and Lai (2002), Physical Review E 66
- Betweenness load Brandes (2001), Journal of Mathematical Sociology 25
- Multilayer networks Kivela and others (2014), Journal of Complex Networks 2
- Infrastructure interdependencies Rinaldi, Peerenboom and Kelly (2001), IEEE Control Systems 21(6)
- Uncertainty fan (parameter Monte Carlo) Spiegelhalter, Pearson and Short (2011), Visualising uncertainty about the future, Science 333
- One-at-a-time sensitivity (tornado) Saltelli and others (2008), Global Sensitivity Analysis: The Primer, Wiley
Data
The model runs on the teaching values set by the controls. To calibrate it for a place, read it against these admitted layers and series, which this page's map can draw:
- Major roads Natural Earth
- Railways Natural Earth
- Seaports Natural Earth
- Airports Natural Earth
- Urban extents Natural Earth
- Night lights tonight, outages (VIIRS Day/Night Band) NASA/NOAA VIIRS (Suomi NPP) · register nasa.gibs.context-live-layers
- Natural events (NASA EONET) NASA EONET · register nasa.eonet.events
Across the six pillars, led by Nexus Consortium
- Experiments Labs
- Built in Digital Public Infrastructure in Foundry
- Tested at Digital Public Infrastructure in Universe
- Codified in Open Infrastructure and Developers in Standards
- Published in Digital Public Infrastructure in Reports
- Taught in Faculty of Technology and Digital Systems in Academy
06Validation
How results are checked.
Controls are tested through red-team exercises, audits and formal analysis of cryptographic schemes. Incident data are used to check whether defences performed as intended.
| Check | How it is done |
|---|---|
| Independent testing | Systems are tested by independent assessors |
| Breach exercises | Breach response is exercised |
| Algorithm inventory | Cryptographic algorithms in use are inventoried |
Adversaries adapt, so historical data may not reflect future attacks. Software supply chains and legacy systems introduce weaknesses that are hard to inventory.
07Methods and evidence
How Cybersecurity for DPI is modelled, measured and tested.
The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.
Datasets and provenance
The data classes behind Cybersecurity for DPI and what is recorded about each before it is used.
| Data class | Provenance recorded | Resolution stated | Licence checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satellite imagery, optical and radar | sensor, processing level, acquisition date | pixel size and revisit | per scene |
| Reanalysis and climate model output | model, experiment, member, version | grid and time step | per release |
| In-situ sensors and gauges | station, instrument, calibration record | point and sampling rate | per network |
| Population and asset exposure | method, vintage, input sources | cell size and unit | per release |
| Boundaries and reference geography | producer, edition, date | scale | per edition |
- Lineage
- W3C PROV record from source to figure
- Principles
- FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable
- Gaps
- shown as missing, never filled silently
FAIR guiding principles · GO FAIR and FORCE11W3C PROV · World Wide Web ConsortiumGuidance on consistent treatment of uncertainties · IPCCCEOS Analysis Ready Data · Committee on Earth Observation Satellites
08Connections
Topics that rely on this method.
09Stewardship
Who maintains the method.
Cybersecurity and Digital Resilience stewards cybersecurity and cryptography for the Consortium and reviews how it is applied across platforms.
10Connected
Where this page leads across the Consortium.
11Questions
Questions and answers.
What are the limits of cybersecurity and cryptography in this field?
Adversaries adapt, so historical data may not reflect future attacks. Software supply chains and legacy systems introduce weaknesses that are hard to inventory.
How are results checked?
Controls are tested through red-team exercises, audits and formal analysis of cryptographic schemes. Incident data are used to check whether defences performed as intended.
Are the values on this page real?
The data names, roles and checks are real descriptions of practice. The canvas shows a design of the method's use, not a run; no result is reported here.
Where else is this method applied?
The canonical method page lists every platform that applies it.
ReportsContribute
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
GCRIDigital Public InfrastructureStrategic SystemsExponential Technology
- EmailGateway GW-GCRISend it from this pageEvidence, a correction, a case, a method, a review, a translation or profile input. It arrives tagged with this page, so the editor who owns it receives it.
- ZenodoOpen depositDeposit it and submit to the communityPublish your own record on Zenodo with your ORCID iD, then submit it to the Reports community there. Curators review it; the DOI stays yours.
- ReportsGCRISee every way to contributeThe contribution types, how each is reviewed, what credit you receive, the licence and what is never accepted.
Never send personal data, sensitive infrastructure detail or anything you have no right to share. A contribution is reviewed before use; sending it confers no authorship or editorial rights, and sponsorship never buys a finding.
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