Handling Critical Infrastructures in Federation of Cyber Ranges: A Classification Model

A novel system is presented in this paper, which is able to classify the different components that comprise a Federation Cyber Range (FCR) platform in terms of their criticality level and thus maximize the sharing capabilities of environments that include critical infrastructures as part of their scenarios. A characterization method is proposed in order to share the requested information amongst the cyber ranges part of a federation platform with respect to the criticality level of each unique system, lying under a scenario. The proposed model is able to correctly categorize systems based on their criticality level that are part of a scenario, conceal information, evaluate the trust level of any partner and produce and distribute reusable scenarios, according to designated markings. Mechanisms to perform an overall evaluation to the resulting scenario regarding its pliability, reusability and its evaluation aspects are to be considered. This model describes a dynamic and scalable system, able to support security needs inside an FCR environment, hide critical information from non-eligible partners and dynamically create new public scenarios based on the existing ones, without alternating the initial educational objectives.