14 DAY TRIAL // US Navi engineers are working on a cyber protection system codenamed RHIMES (Resilient Hull, Mechanical, and Electrical Security), aimed at protecting navy ships from Internet-based hacking.
"The purpose of RHIMES is to enable us to fight through a cyber attack. This technology will help the Navy protect its shipboard physical systems, but it may also have important applications to protecting our nation's physical infrastructure," said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Mat Winter for Phys.org.
According to Dr. Ryan Craven, Program Officer at the Cyber Security and Complex Software Systems Program in the Mathematics Computer and Information Sciences Division of the Office of Naval Research, RHIMES is specifically designed to protect the ship's key hardware systems from being taken over or even disabled by remote attackers.
RHIMES is currently in a testing phase, and chances are high that the system will be deployed to protect a ship's electrical system, its internal firefighting systems, engines, the ship's steering, hydraulics, and any other component that might inhibit a ship's crew from carrying out its mission in a safe environment.
RHIMES implements different programming architectures for the same hardware component
Craven said that RHIMES works by utilizing the ship's built-in backup systems. Since all key ship components have a backup in place to prevent failure at critical times, RHIMES works by implementing diversity in the programming of these components.
This way, even if an attacker breaks into the main component, the backup is not affected and could easily take its place. This would give the ship's personnel time to mitigate attacks, by not having to worry that key systems are shutting down around them.
While attack mitigation for one-and-done systems are usually focused on prevention, the navy's multi-layered architecture would allow it the necessary time to restart hardware components, safely return to port, and even create and install patches for affected systems.