Africa-Press – Cape verde. The book “Resilience To Cyber-Attacks in Critical Infrastructures of Portugal” by Cape Verdean Any Keila Pereira, will be launched today, 26th, at the Pedro Cardoso bookstore, in Praia . The presentation of the work will be in charge of Professor Sónia Semedo and engineer Juvenal Pereira.
The book is presented within the scope of the National Science Program, of the Ministry of Education, and is the first in a collection of academic works awarded with scientific prizes by the Ministry of Education.
The book is the result of the author’s master’s thesis. The thesis won the Cabo Verde Prize for Girls and Women in ICT (PGW) as the best thesis written by a Cape Verdean in ICT in the last three years.
Critical infrastructures are always a potential target for cyberattacks, the author begins by clarifying in the publisher’s press release, since the repercussions of a successful attack can be catastrophic, as these systems control and allow access to main services from the country.
One of the systems that are part of this group of critical infrastructures in a country are the Industrial Control Systems (ICSs), used to automate and control the processes of various industrial infrastructures.
In the past, the same note continues, ICSs were used in an isolated environment, however, over time and to satisfy the demands of the modern market, they began to be linked to the external environment. This brought many benefits, but also increased their level of exposure and vulnerability. Although these systems are vital for the proper functioning of a country, there is no public work that assesses the security status of these systems in Portugal.
Identify ICSs
“The main objective of this work was to identify ICSs exposed on the Internet in Portugal and investigate their level of risk in terms of security. Based on this, a methodology was developed that involved identifying ICSs, calculating their risk according to their characteristics, and developing a data warehouse to gather and organize the data, and allow for easy analysis. ”, explains the author in the same statement.
One of the central objectives of this work was the development of a methodology to identify Industrial Control Systems (ICS) exposed to the Internet in Portugal and investigate their level of risk in terms of security. The methodology proposed in the book consists of six phases and involves the identification of data sources on SCI and its possible vulnerabilities, the assessment of the risk of each vulnerability, the creation of a formula to calculate the overall risk and the analysis of the data based on in the calculated risk.
Any Keila Pereira is a Data Scientist, graduated in Computer Engineering and Master in Information Technology and Systems. She is the author of some scientific articles in international journals, one of which won the “Best Position Paper Award in the 13th International Conference on Software and Technologies (ICSOFT)”, in 2018.
With the aforementioned award, in the same year, she was honored by the Government of Cape Verde, at the Gala Cabo Verde Sucesso, in Lisbon, in the Science and Technology category.
In 2022, she won the first edition of the Cabo Verde Prize for Girls and Women in ICT (PGW), one of the Scientific Awards promoted by the National Science Program, of the Ministry of Education.
Text originally published in the printed edition of Expresso das Ilhas no 1156 of January 24, 2024.
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