# Enhancing Cybersecurity Through Comprehensive Investigation of Data Flow-Based Attack Scenarios
## 3 Proposed Approach
### Methodology
#### 3.2.3 Impact Enumeration
Hx functionality relies on wireless networks and precise commands, which are necessary in order to function. An Hx Remote Operator is able to fully control a single Hx using a remote control, especially when activating, deactivating, maintaining, or integrating a new Hx into production. Site Operators oversee the quarry from a control room where the Site Servers are located. As illustrated in Figure 4, this case study demonstrates the process of taking control of a specific Hx, such as Hx-1. The Hx Remote Operator initiates the control request and transmits it to Fleet Control. Based on the circumstances, Fleet Control may either approve the request (Grant Control) or reject it (Reject Control). Simultaneously, while Fleet Control transmits this information to the Site Server, the _Info Status_ message provides details about the active Hx. After accepting the Remote Control request, Fleet Control dispatches the task _Approve Checkout_ to Hx-1. After completing this task, the Hx Remote Operator takes control of Hx-1. In addition, the Hx Remote Operator can return control of Hx-1 to Fleet Control. In this scenario, Fleet Control sends _Take Control_ to Hx-1, which then listens for the commands issued by Fleet Control. Figure 4: Control structure diagram of the remotely controlled Hx-1 [16]. To apply our proposed approach, we first review the system requirements and design, then create a DFD to anticipate potential attack types and conduct an attack impact analysis of the system. The DFD is depicted in Figure 5. This DFD is instantiated within the Microsoft Threat Modeling Tool, portraying the concepts elucidated in Figure 4 in the form of a data flow diagram. A detailed explanations of the DFD is not included in this paper. We run the _Attack Profile Generator_ to determine the origin, location, and direction of the threats along with potential attack types for this specific case study. The output of this execution is an attack list that serves as input for the next step, detection of attack surfaces, in which we activate the _Attack Surface Detection_ component to identify all possible source and destination components as well as a catalog of potential attacks that could transpire between each component pair. The _Attack Scenario API_ is then executed to pinpoint all potential attack scenarios that could be used by attackers targeting the system. The output of the case study can be viewed at https://tly/Rdfvr (accessed on 30 September 2024). Figure 5: DPD diagram of the _remote control Hx-1_ case study. ## 5 Results and Comparative Analysis

In this section, we present the results of implementing the proposed steps, as illustrated in Figure 2 and explained in Section 3, leveraging the case study from Section 4. ### Key Findings

We managed to generate 3100 attack scenarios by running the _Attack Scenario API_, providing a non-comprehensive list of results prioritized for addressing fundamental inquiries and formulating definitive conclusions. After conducting a thorough analysis of the case study, we selected eight scenarios from the obtained pool of 3100 scenarios which illustrate the ability of our proposed approach to generate a wide range of scenarios. These scenarios are depicted in Figure 6. For instance, in scenario five the remote control Hx-1 system is vulnerable to three types of attacks. The first type is an _Unauthorized Access_ attack that occurs during the data transfer between _HxRemoteOperator_ and _RemoteController_. The second type is a _Data Repudiation_ attack that may occur during the data exchange between _RemoteController_ and _FleetController_. The third type is an _Impersonation_ attack which might occur during the data transfer between _FleetController_ and _SiteServer_. All obtained scenarios, results, and related data are accessible at https://tly/Rdfvr (accessed on 30 September 2024). **Analysis of Attack Scenario Distribution:** Figure 7 illustrates the distribution of attack scenarios generated for the remote control Hx-1 case study.