Shukla, Meha; (2018) Study of cyber security risk management in UK’s critical infrastructure sectors. Masters thesis (M.Res), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The smart city components such as smart grids, smart transport and smart medical devices connected by physical sensors through Internet-of-Things (IoT) have heightened the threats to national security. The disruption to essential services such as water, transport, electricity and primary health care from a cyber-attack can cause significant damage to the national economy and harm to individuals. This research explored the cyber security risk management across the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sectors under Networks and Information Security (NIS) legislation implemented in the UK on 9 May 2018 and its impact on the Smarter London Together plan. In particular, the research examined how the NIS approach will bring a step-change in the cyber-security risk management capabilities of the CNI sectors. While previous work has assessed cyber capability maturity of CNI sectors and the NIS strategy, there has been limited study into the effectiveness of the national framework for cyber risk management. NIS being in its infancy, data was collected through interviews with the regulatory authorities, sampled Operators of Essential Services (OES) and primary organizations impacted by the Smarter London Together planning. Qualitative analysis of the data gathered against the NIS objectives pointed out gaps in the NIS framework specific to the holistic security measures, cross-sector security measures, outcome-based assessments, smart technology risks and NIS performance measures. The gaps highlighted the danger of not meeting the NIS key strategic objective of transforming the cyber security capabilities of CNI sectors in a progressive manner. This research served to be a discovery process for the design of the Smart London Together approach to cyber security. The researcher provided ten key recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the NIS framework. Implementation of these recommendations will strengthen the combined cyber, physical and personnel security of the CNI services prior to extending the NIS principles to non-CNI organizations of the future smart city of London.

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