Connected systems are only as safe as the security built around them.
Cybersecurity meets Functional Safety
Connected systems have changed what it means to be safe. When a cybersecurity weakness, whether an attack, a misconfiguration, or a compromised component, can alter how a solution senses, decides, or acts, cybersecurity stops being a separate discipline and becomes part of the safety case.
Why Cybersecurity Safety Matters
Not Certain What You Need? Let’s Start with a Functional Safety Assessment.
Cybersecurity Safety Services
Cybersecurity Safety addresses the intersection of cybersecurity and functional safety, helping identify cyber-induced safety risks, align safety and cybersecurity requirements and activities, and build the evidence needed to demonstrate that these risks have been appropriately addressed.
Conducting a two-sided assessment of an existing solution, documentation, and engineering processes to identify gaps and interactions between functional safety and cybersecurity safety. The assessment evaluates how cybersecurity threats may impact safe operation and how functional safety design decisions, safety functions, safe-state behavior, diagnostics, maintenance, and recovery mechanisms may introduce cybersecurity risks.
Identifying the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) requirements applicable to the solution. This includes analyzing the applicable CRA obligations, determining their impact on the product, mapping them to existing safety, cybersecurity, and design requirements, and identifying any additional requirements or actions needed.
Establishing the governance, planning, roles, interfaces, and escalation paths needed to coordinate functional safety and cybersecurity safety activities across the system lifecycle. This includes defining how safety and cybersecurity teams will work together, how cyber-related issues that may affect safety will be identified and managed, and how evidence will be organized to support integrated assurance.
Assessing the intersection of functional safety and cybersecurity based on existing Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA) and Threat Analysis and Risk Assessment (TARA). Identifying cybersecurity threats that may impact safety functions, safe states, diagnostics, communications, or existing risk reduction measures, and evaluating whether additional safety measures are needed to address cyber-induced safety risks.
Translating Cybersecurity Safety Risk Analysis outputs into clear, traceable engineering requirements that connect safety needs, cybersecurity protections, assumptions, constraints, and verification evidence. This includes identifying existing requirements that address identified risks, defining new requirements where needed, and incorporating them into the relevant Safety Requirements Specification (SRS) and/or Cybersecurity Requirements Specification (SecuRS) while maintaining traceability from the identified risks through implementation and verification.
Supporting the translation of cybersecurity safety requirements into detailed safety and design requirements through functional safety and cybersecurity engineering activities. This includes translating cybersecurity safety requirements into detailed system, hardware, software, interface, and operational design requirements while maintaining traceability of safety and cybersecurity impacts, assumptions, constraints, and evidence, with the resulting requirements integrated into the System Design Description (SDD).
Verifying and validating that cybersecurity safety requirements have been effectively implemented and that safety-related cybersecurity protections reduce risk as intended. This includes coordinating safety and cybersecurity V&V activities, defining test scenarios, evaluating V&V evidence, and confirming that cyber-induced conditions affecting safety functions, safe states, diagnostics, communications, or recovery behavior have been adequately addressed.
Supporting the investigation of functional safety and cybersecurity safety incidents or issues in deployed systems. This includes performing root cause analysis to understand how safety and cybersecurity factors contributed to an issue, identifying actions or solutions to reduce associated risks, and applying lessons learned to prevent similar issues in the future.
Our Approach
Every project is powered by a tightly integrated delivery team we call a unit cell.
Designed with the client at its core, our unit cell approach pairs a Project Lead Engineer with a Project Coordinator/Technical Writer to guide day-to-day client collaboration. Behind the scenes, a dedicated team of engineers, along with a Principal Engineer and Principal Technical Editor, ensures every stage of the project is expertly supported.
Our unit cells embed directly with the client’s design team adapting to their tools, workflows, and pace to deliver clarity, technical depth, and a highly responsive experience.
