Adaptive Digital Twin: Protection, deception, and testing

• Adaptable cybersecurity capabilities driven by an adaptive digital twin • Adaptive digital twin for protection, deception, and testing • Characterization of an adaptive digital twin, capable of providing cybersecurity capabilities, such as protection, deception, and testing, in a safe and reliable manner. A Digital Twin (DT) is a cutting-edge technology that has gained relevance in recent years, demonstrating huge potential for the simulation of processes and the provision of valuable insights to improve and optimise systems. Leveraging a high degree of fidelity in replicating real-world processes, DTs are being explored for advanced applications such as deception and proactive protection of critical infrastructures. However, this same advantage also raises concerns with respect to a system’s exposure, as the detailed digital representation may introduce new cybersecurity risks. With the aim of assisting the growth of this technology, this paper presents an adaptive DT solution that facilitates the configuration of particular components of the digital system, tailoring different application scenarios specifically for protection, deception, and testing purposes. Finally, the proposed architecture is tested under a specific IoT-oriented use case to validate, experiment, and extract conclusions of the proposed solution.