Authors:
Richard May
;
Jyoti Gautam
;
Chetan Sharma
;
Christian Biermann
and
Thomas Leich
Affiliation:
Harz University of Applied Sciences, Wernigerode, Germany
Keyword(s):
Security, Configurable Systems, Software Product Lines, Safety-Critical Systems, Systematic Mapping Study.
Abstract:
Safety-critical systems are becoming increasingly configurable. However, as the number of features and configurations grows, the systems’ complexity also increases, making cyber attacks more likely. Nevertheless, we miss an overview of security in configurable safety-critical systems which are based on product-line engineering. Thus, we conducted a systematic mapping study in which we analyzed 44 papers (2008–2022) to discuss relevant properties and to identify 8 research opportunities. Our key finding is that security in the context of variability and safety-critical systems needs more consideration and research. We emphasize that safety-critical systems, especially those with networking capabilities, cannot be safe if they do not provide techniques to ensure security and do not consider the systems’ configurability. Our study is aimed to guide both researchers and practitioners in understanding the importance of security for configurable safety-critical systems, relevant properties
, and open issues.
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