Security Application of Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA)

Increasingly complex systems lead to an interweaving of security, safety, availability and reliability concerns. Most dependability analysis techniques do not include security aspects. In order to include security, a holistic risk model for systems is needed. In our novel approach, the basic failure cause, failure mode and failure effect model known from FMEA is used as a template for a vulnerability cause-effect chain, and an FMEA analysis technique extended with security is presented. This represents a unified model for safety and security cause-effect analysis. As an example the technique is then applied to a distributed industrial measurement system.