Towards Effective Safety and Cybersecurity Co-engineering in Critical Domains

The primary objective of functional safety and cybersecurity co-engineering is to streamline assessment processes and enhance efficiency by implementing integrated approaches, therefore reducing overall effort and bringing several consequential advantages. Although this concept is not new, and there have already been successful attempts at its utilization in different critical domains such as nuclear, railway, and automotive, no mature approach could be easily adopted and applied during the assessment. Another challenge is that the understanding of co-engineering is essentially different, depending on domain specifics and priorities. Moreover, issues are still related to measuring efficiency achieved by co-engineering utilization. This paper addresses the current state of safety and cybersecurity co-engineering in critical domains. With a focus on nuclear, automotive, and railway domains, it proposes directions toward developing effective co-engineering frameworks for them.