Abstract
In the late twentieth century, the term “System of Systems” (SoS) became popular to describe a complex system made up of a combination of independent constituent systems. Since then, several studies have been conducted to support and assess SoS management, functionality, and performance. Due to the evolutionary nature of SoS and the non-composability of the security properties of its constituent systems, it is difficult to assess or evaluate SoS security. This paper provides an up-to-date survey on SoS security, aimed at stimulating and guiding further research efforts. This systematic mapping study (SMS) focuses on SoS security, privacy, and trust. Our SMS identified 1828 studies from 6 digital libraries, 87 of which were selected that presented approaches analyzing, evaluating, or improving security. We classified these studies using nine research questions that focused on the nature of the studies, the studied SoS, or the study validation. After examining the selected studies, we identified six gaps and as many future work directions. More precisely, we observed that few studies examine SoS problems and instead propose specific solutions, making it challenging to develop generalizable approaches. Furthermore, the lack of standardization has hindered the reuse of existing approaches, making it difficult for solutions to be generalized to other SoS. In addition, the lack of descriptions of industrial environments in the literature makes it difficult to design realistic validation environments. As a result, the validation of new SoS research remains a challenge in the field.
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1 Introduction
Security in computer systems has attracted increasing attention in recent years. This is undoubtedly due to the increasing number of systems and personal devices that are now being connected and which often contain sensitive information about matters like health, finances, or personal tastes. Consequently, people are becoming increasingly aware of security risks and concerned about attacks that may affect their private data.
The cloud is now also widely used to store or back up personal data. The use of cloud systems allows users to access their data from any device and at any time, as long as they have an Internet connection. However, this advantage comes at the cost of new privacy, security, and trust issues. Security, privacy, and trust become clearly related because when storing their personal data on different servers somewhere in the cloud, users necessarily have to trust that the provider organization will securely protect their data and defend their privacy.
Security, privacy, and trust assume even greater importance in the case of systems of systems (SoS) due to the evolutionary nature of such systems and the dynamic composition of their constituent systems. The SoS paradigm provides a strategy for coordinating the processes performed by independent systems working together to achieve global goals that a single system could not achieve on its own [1, 2]. Although it dates back to the mid-1990s [3], the SoS paradigm has attracted substantial interest only in recent years, thanks to the progress in connectivity capabilities and IoT technology.
Since a SoS connects individual systems in ways that may not have been planned in advance, it is evident that the interactions arising from a SoS arrangement may be vulnerable to new security threats and could also impact the privacy of the connected users or, indeed, any of the people whose data are saved in any of the constituent systems. Trust can also become a key concern in this scenario. The connections between the constituent systems of a SoS that were not foreseen could in fact undermine the preservation of pre-existing chains of trust among the different systems involved. Therefore, proper mechanisms are needed to control the transitivity of trust relationships across the emerging SoS.
In other words, as discussed by Petkovic and Jonker [4], security in our modern digital world is a multifaceted issue that cannot be analyzed without considering together privacy and trust concerns. On the other hand, the non-composability of security, privacy, and trust makes such properties more difficult to be determined in the context of SoS.
In a recent related study, we highlighted the challenges that arise when dealing with the security properties of SoS compositions [5], showing how the analysis of security properties is hindered by their non-composability. An unexpected combination of shared resources may generate emergent behaviors within the SoS, which may in turn introduce exploitable vulnerabilities that cannot be mitigated by examining the constituent systems individually. A well-described case in the literature is the exploited vulnerability of Mat Honan’s digital life.Footnote 1 The different social systems Mr. Honan used were combined into a virtual SoS that suffered an attack exploiting an unplanned combination of the resources provided by the constituent systems.
Due to the dynamic composition of the SoS, the constituent systems may also connect or disconnect from the SoS in an uncontrolled manner. Studying the security, privacy, and trust properties of SoS is a complex task also because responsibilities and shared resources are handled in different ways depending on how the constituent systems are orchestrated, i.e., according to the SoS architecture.
Unsurprisingly, considerable research has been done in recent years to address security, privacy, and trust issues in SoS. Notwithstanding, to the best of our knowledge, no systematic collection and/or classification of that work has yet been undertaken.
In this work we aim at filling such a gap by providing a systematic survey of the existing literature. Since the seminal work by Kitchenham and Charters [6] providing Software Engineering researchers with guidelines for conducting systematic literature reviews (SLRs), secondary studies have become a major tool toward a rigorous analysis and categorization of results in a defined research field. Indeed, a systematic survey follows a standard method that facilitates the replicability of searches and reduces potential author bias by adhering to precise guidelines instead of the researcher’s own assumptions [6].
While initially SLRs received the largest attention, another type of secondary study that has been broadly pursued in Software Engineering are Systematic Mapping Studies (SMSs) [7]. A SMS [7] is a method designed to provide a comprehensive overview of a field of interest (often a recently established one) by categorizing existing research results and also by identifying gaps that can properly direct more primary studies. SMSs are characterized as a complementary type of study to SLRs, from which they differ in goals and data collection breadth. Regarding goals, SMSs are considered a more appropriate tool when the study addresses a broad topic and the main goal is that of structuring the investigated research area (as opposed to SLRs that rather aim at synthesizing the existing evidence) [8]. Regarding data collection breadth, SMSs generally use less focused search strings and broader research questions [6], aiming at covering research trends [7].
As our goal here was that of identifying and categorizing existing research on security for SoS, encompassing security, privacy, and trust, in the absence of other secondary studies that cover the area, we hence opted for conducting a SMS.
Summarizing, this work offers a review of the state of the art, focusing on available and published work addressing security, privacy, and trust issues from a SoS perspective, and aims at identifying the gaps in current research. It is important to clarify that the scope of this SMS is limited to research on security, privacy, and trust specifically regarding the combination and cooperation of the constituent systems in a SoS. The study does not cover the vast amount of literature on security, privacy, and trust issues related to single systems, even if complex or distributed.
This SMS includes journal articles, conference papers, and workshop papers on systems of systems. A systematic search was carried out in the most important computer science digital libraries (namely ACM DL, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Scopus, Springer, and Web of Science). With the aim of finding as many relevant studies as possible, we used a comprehensive search string, covering security, privacy, and trust; as mentioned above, SoS security cannot really be addressed without also considering privacy- and trust-related aspects. After conducting the search and the defined selection process, 87 primary studies were finally identified as relevant to assess issues related to security, privacy, and trust in SoSs.
We categorized the selected studies using three perspectives, each consisting of three research questions (RQs). The first perspective delved into the nature of the study, including its goals, scope, and contribution. The second perspective examined the characteristics of the SoS being studied, such as its architecture and roles. The third perspective analyzed the application context of the approach or study, including its implementation, validation, and domain of application. In summary, this SMS sought to answer a set of nine related RQs through the three distinct perspectives we used to classify the selected studies.
Our SMS confirmed a growing interest in research into SoS security, with an increasing number of papers being published on just this topic that are the majority of the surveyed studies. A minor number of the works found focuses instead on security and privacy or security and trust, while we did not find works covering all three properties together. We identified though several major challenges, such as the lack of industrial cases and the absence of SoS details or material, which would allow results to be replicated.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II provides some background and summarizes some related work. Section III presents the SMS planning, Section IV describes the process of conducting the SMS, and Section V outlines the last stage of the SMS by providing a reporting of the findings. Finally, considering the current state of the art as reflected in the study, Section VI provides a set of conclusions and suggests some possible future research lines.
2 Related work
The “System of Systems” paradigm has been defined in different ways and domains by different authors since as far back as the 1950s [9]. In 1999, Maier [3] proposed a unifying definition of SoS in computer science, leveraging the features that characterize the concept in this domain. Years later, in 2005, the same author updated that early work by highlighting the research challenges that still needed to be addressed [10].
An SMS is a process for collecting and organizing existing studies in a research field to respond to a series of research questions [11]. The term “systematic” refers to the rigorous adoption of a well-defined search protocol to identify and evaluate the available literature so as to reduce the impact of author bias on the results found. This protocol guarantees that studies that do not match the initial hypotheses or expectations of the authors can be included as well.
Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) and SMSs share similar purposes and similar processes. SLRs focus on more specific RQs, seek more clearly defined details, and employ deeper analysis techniques, whereas SMSs are designed to consider more general RQs and provide broad coverage of a topic. The SMS has become a widely used approach for state-of-the-art research in emerging areas.
As explained in the introduction section, we conducted this paper as an SMS because such type of study enables us to capture a broader range of studies (including those that might not have been covered by a narrower search protocol of an SLR) and to draw a map of the research area, possibly identifying existing gaps.
In recent years, several surveys have been conducted in the area of SoS with different purposes, as we summarize in the following.
A systematic review in 2013 provided an overview of the SoS architecture [12]. The authors emphasized that this field was maturing at a slower pace than others. They also underlined that most of the approaches found developed solutions for specific SoS problems but did not provide a general perspective suitable for widespread adoption. In total, they analyzed 194 studies. However, in terms of quality attributes, only 14 papers focused on SoS security aspects.
Two years later, a review was published that classified SoS according to their purpose [13]. This work defined its own SoS characterization using already existing approaches for defining or classifying SoS. The authors concluded the study using the identified SoS characteristics to identify new research lines.
In 2015, a SMS was conducted to structure scientific developments in SoS [14]. From the results obtained, the author concluded that until 2015 the most researched areas were architecture, modeling, and simulation. The author also highlighted the immaturity of this area, the lack of citations of existing works, and the predominant participation of US researchers in this topic. This SMS says they studied nearly 3000 works, but the list of selected studies is not available.
Another review conducted in 2015 analyzed SoS according to their architecture and how they could be described [15]. Researchers reported a lack of consensus on how the SoS architecture is described and found that security was barely mentioned.
A third survey conducted in the same year addressed the quality attributes of SoS [2]. In this study, the three most relevant quality attributes identified in SoS were security, performance, and interoperability, and 14 articles referred to each attribute. This work highlighted the increasing difficulty of ensuring security in SoS given the dependencies, trade-offs, and relationships that existed between the different quality attributes.
Later, a systematic survey of SoS integration analyzed software engineering methods that can assist in the integration of constituent systems [16]. As in [12], the authors noticed that most of the studies were carried out by isolated groups to solve specific problems, making it difficult to generalize such approaches to wider SoS contexts.
A more recent systematic review of SoS was conducted by Daneva and Lazarov [17]. This study presented the results of an SLR that focuses on the SoS requirements of smart cities. The authors classified 32 selected papers according to the types of smart cities and the requirements addressed. Their results showed that requirements for architecture were the most discussed topic, and little was mentioned about security or privacy challenges.
According to this summary of previous literature reviews, SoS is an emerging research area with a growing community of researchers. Researchers have focused on functional and technical specifications, such as SoS architecture. Despite the concern regarding non-functional requirements (e.g., security, performance, interoperability) being raised, it seems the non-functional requirements have not been as much developed as the functional ones.
For instance, while previous studies have focused on specific areas within SoS research, such as architecture, modeling, and simulation, our study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of security for systems of systems. Our focus on security aligns with the growing concern regarding the security challenges posed by the shared resources and complex interactions in systems of systems.
Furthermore, while some previous studies have identified security as a significant non-functional requirement for SoS, they have not delved into the details of this issue as much as our study. For example, the 2015 review of SoS architecture and description noted that security was barely mentioned in the surveyed literature. In contrast, our study takes a deep dive into the security aspects of systems of systems, including issues related to trust and privacy.
With the aim of providing an overview and promoting the research on security, on SoS, the present systematic mapping study summarizes works that specifically address security, also including privacy and/or trust requirements and challenges in the context of a SoS and analyzes the current state of the art in this area. We aim at discovering if such properties have been developed, and the most relevant results so far. We ignore those SoS studies that do not focus on security, or privacy, or trust as their main concerns.
Additionally, our study also differs from most of previous works in its approach to conducting a systematic mapping study. As we have previously mentioned, an SMS provides a broader scope of coverage, including studies that might not have been captured by a narrower search protocol of an SLR. In addition, the use of generic keywords enabled us to capture a wide range of literature on security for systems of systems. This approach has allowed us to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art regarding security for systems of systems.
Since our objective is to provide comprehensive coverage of SoS security concerns, and not to answer specific RQs, the ultimate objective being to represent the current state of knowledge and research lines, this study was conducted using SMS guidelines. In particular, this SMS has been conducted following the guidelines proposed by Petersen et al. [7], which are similar to those provided by Kitchenham and Charters in their adaptation of systematic literature reviews (SLR) to computer science [6].
The following sections describe the activities we conducted in each of the three phases of the SMS as shown in Fig. 1: (1) planning, (2) conducting, and (3) reporting.
SLR and SMS phases
3 Planning
An accurate and rigorous planning is crucial to the quality of an SMS since the decisions taken in this phase will influence the results of the entire process. The planning phase was organized into three stages: (1) identifying the need for an SMS, (2) developing the review protocol, and (3) specifying the research questions.
3.1 Identify the need for a review
This SMS aims at identifying already existing solutions and relevant research lines and topics related to security, privacy, and trust issues in the SoS context.
The need for this review arises after finding that a recent study has identified some issues regarding the understanding of “Security.” Such a study explores, particularly, the causes and consequences of vulnerabilities and the concept of homogeneity of security among the constituent systems [18]. After exploring the digital libraries, we did not find previous literature surveys addressing these concerns.
Consequently, the goal of this SMS is to explore the current state of the art with respect mostly to “Security,” which is the property more widely studied. Notwithstanding, for the sake of broader coverage, we consider the trinity of security, privacy, and trust in the SoS context. As explained in the Introduction, privacy and trust are related to security as the shared resources within constituent systems composition are exposed to third parties that might affect the privacy of the resources and the chains of trust among the constituent systems.
In other words, we look forward to analyzing the characteristics of the SoS that in recent years researchers have been focusing on in their research when it comes to SoS security, privacy, and trust. The goal is to understand the current state of the art in this area.
3.2 Review protocol
The review protocol starts by defining the search strategy, which outlines how the search is performed in the main digital libraries, continues by stating the study selection criteria, and describes the applied snowballing effect.
3.2.1 Search strategy definition
At the beginning of the search strategy definition phase, a group of keywords was combined to perform a set of initial searches. The purpose of this was to analyze preliminary results and select the keywords that provided the most suitable results for our purpose. The used search keywords were in English, since this is the international language of research and because the search was going to be carried out in this language. Wildcards were avoided after some libraries showed incompatibilities with them, so we opted to use the most representative keywords. The keywords to be used during the searches had to be generic enough to provide a wide coverage of the need for this SMS. The finally chosen keywords for this review protocol are shown in Table 1, where each keyword is associated with its corresponding concept.
The first concept, “System of Systems,” limited the papers to those with content related to this topic. The second concept, “Security, Privacy Trust,” restricted the criteria, covering papers dealing with both “Systems of Systems” and “Security, Privacy, Trust.”
The concept of “Security” included the terms “Security,” “Privacy,” and “Trust” to ensure complete coverage in the security context and in areas related to those concepts. Therefore, we included the terms Privacy and Trust in our search and analysis. The joint use of Security, Privacy, and Trust has been motivated by [4] and supported by their own definition in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). On the one hand, the term “Privacy” allows us to include studies focusing on new security threats that could also impact the privacy of connected users or, in general, of people whose data are saved in any of the constituent systems. Privacy has been defined as “Assurance that the confidentiality of, and access to, certain information about an entity is protected.”Footnote 2 The confidentiality is one of the security properties; therefore, the assurance of the confidentiality would somehow benefit the privacy. On the other hand, the term “Trust” allows to include studies on the connection issues between constituent systems of a SoS, which may not have been foreseen and could cause problems about the preservation of pre-existing chains of trust between the different involved constituent systems. According to its definition,Footnote 3 trust is “A characteristic of an entity that indicates its ability to perform certain functions or services correctly, fairly and impartially, along with assurance that the entity and its identifier are genuine.” Consequently, it is related to security due to the need of preserving the integrity and authentication aspects.
Although our SMS study is motivated by our main concern with security in systems of systems, we identified that relevant literature on security may also be present in articles related to trust and privacy. Therefore, the inclusion of these concepts in our study allowed us to achieve a broader coverage of relevant studies while maintaining our focus on the security of systems of systems. The selection of general terms is common in an SMS as this type of study aims to map and categorize existing literature in a specific field. By using general terms, a wider set of relevant studies can be captured to achieve an overview of the available literature on the topic.
The decision of not including additional or more specific keywords is based on the fact that “security,” “privacy,” and “trust” are widely accepted and used in academia as well as in the industry presumably offering a considerable coverage. Also, constraining our search to these keywords helps in understanding the focus of this study and ease the analysis, comparison and contrast of our results. Despite we acknowledge that there are further concepts and keywords that are more specific but still relevant in the context of security and SoS, we decided to strategically limit the scope of the research to balance effort and results.
The search query finally used in the digital libraries is a combination of the keywords shown in Table 1. In the launched query, each concept was joined with the “AND” operator and every synonym of the concept was appended with the “OR” operator, as follows:
( "system of systems" OR "systems of systems" OR "system-of-systems" OR "systems-of-systems") AND ( "security" OR "trust" OR "privacy").
The search was executed in well-known computer science digital libraries, namely: ACM DL, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Scopus, Springer, and Web of Science.
The published proceedings and journals related to the subject of this SMS featured in two of the libraries: the “IEEE International Conference on System of Systems Engineering” and “International Workshop on Software Engineering for Systems-of-Systems,” indexed in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library, and the “International Journal of System of Systems Engineering,” indexed in Scopus.
Mendeley desktop software has been used to preserve the traceability of the articles found. The main advantages of this software are its ability to manage bibliographies to different standards and to import bibliographies in different formats.
3.2.2 Study selection criteria
A set of inclusion and exclusion criteria was defined to filter which studies would be chosen as relevant for the mapping study, and quality assessment parameters were established to guarantee the quality of the chosen studies. The study selection criteria were used to identify the studies that could provide useful answers to our RQs by specifying impartial inclusion and exclusion conditions. The study selection was designed to be conducted collaboratively by all authors. Therefore, the criteria used had to be clear to enable a standardized selection of primary studies. By defining the selection criteria before conducting the search, it was also possible to reduce author bias when selecting primary studies.
The inclusion criteria helped to establish the conditions that a primary study is required to meet to be considered relevant. On the contrary, the exclusion criteria determined the articles that would be considered out of the scope for this SMS.
The following conditions were considered as inclusion criteria (all of them had to be true for inclusion):
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The study was carried out in the System of Systems context.
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The study focuses on SoS security and/or trust and/or privacy: i.e., the constituent systems in joint operations.
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The study is written in English.
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The study was published after 2010. Starting from 2010 was considered sufficient, as according to Axelson [14] this is the year in which this field of research began to grow.
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The study describes a validation scenario or applies its contribution to a validation scenario.
The following conditions were considered as exclusion criteria (only one of them is sufficient for exclusion):
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The title or abstract is not within the scope of this literature research.
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The study was not peer reviewed.
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The systems of systems addressed are not computer-based systems.
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The study does not consider more than one system.
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The author(s) cannot be identified.
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The contribution of the paper is unclear.
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The full text of the study is not available.
Secondary or tertiary studies found in the search would not be selected or analyzed but would nonetheless be retained for discussion in the Related Work section.
3.2.3 Snowballing cycle
Snowballing backward and forward [19] was applied. Backward and forward snowballing is conducted with the selected primary studies to ensure that no important studies are missed. For backward snowballing, references in the chosen primary studies were examined. For forward snowballing, we used available online tools, mainly Google Scholar, to identify those studies that cite each chosen primary study. As our original search included all the main digital libraries, we considered one cycle of snowballing to be sufficient to pick up any study missed in the search.
3.2.4 Quality assessment
Our search process is carried out using the resources available in peer-reviewed scientific digital libraries. Therefore, the quality assessment is delegated to the peer review process of each journal.
3.3 Research questions
The research questions (RQs) guide the entire study, as the purpose of the SMS is precisely to generate answers to these questions.
Nine RQs were defined to help achieve the goal of this study. In order to derive an adequate set of RQs several meetings among all the authors were devoted first to identify the most important aspects to extract from the studies, and then to refine the RQs by going through a sample of the studies. We also compared our RQs against other similar reviews from close areas. Finally, to better organize the RQs, three perspectives are used to summarize them: Nature of the studies, SoS under study, and Study validation.
(1) Nature of the studies. This perspective groups RQ1.1, RQ1.2, and RQ1.3. The questions in this nature are designed to discover the nature of published studies by considering their goals, scope, and the purpose of the contributions. This perspective will provide us an insight to understand the focus of this area of research: the motivations, area of interests, and the status of maturation.
By understanding the existing context, we can assess the existing body of knowledge, identify potential limitations, and propose future directions for research that address the specific needs and challenges of the field. It helps researchers to align their investigations with the practical realities, identify relevant research questions, and contribute to the advancement of the field by addressing specific challenges and needs.
(2) SoS under study. This perspective deals with the SoS studied in each research. It is made up of RQ2.1, RQ2.2, and RQ2.3. These questions examine the SoS used in the contributions, in other words: its architecture, the SoS dimensions being studied, and the roles of the participating humans. These questions are designed to determine the characteristics of the SoS on which the researchers are focused. Not all SoS behaves in the same way, and not all approaches focus on the same characteristics from a SoS. In this sense, this perspective provides knowledge regarding the coverage of published studies.
By analyzing the characteristics of these SoS, we can identify the breadth and depth of knowledge available in the field. For example, we can assess whether certain types of SoS have received more attention or if there is a preference for investigating security in specific types of SoS. In addition, by studying the types of SoS used in studies, we can identify patterns, trends, and potential gaps in the research. For instance, if certain types of SoS are more prevalent in the literature, it prompts further investigation into why this may be the case. Is it due to their ubiquity in real-world applications, their complexity, or other factors? Understanding these aspects can provide valuable insights into the priorities and research directions within the field of SoS security.
(3) Study validation. The third perspective aims at identifying how other authors validated their research. This corresponds to RQ3.1, RQ3.2, and RQ3.3. The purpose of this third categorization is to determine the impact of the validation on the selected primary studies by analyzing their application domains, the validation of the study, and the description of the used SoS that it would allow to replicate the results.
Assessing the ease of finding suitable validation scenarios provides valuable information about the practicality of implementing and testing SoS security measures. It helps us understand whether there are readily available scenarios or if researchers need to create custom environments for validation purposes. This insight is crucial for determining the feasibility of implementing proposed security measures in real-world SoS contexts.
The level of detail in describing the SoS used for validation is another essential aspect. It enables other researchers to replicate and verify the results of previous studies, fostering the advancement of knowledge in the field. If the level of detail is insufficient, it may hinder the reproducibility and comparability of research findings.
Additionally, studying the level of integration between academia and industry provides insights into the practicality and relevance of research in addressing real-world challenges. Understanding the degree of collaboration and interaction between academia and industry helps bridge the gap between theoretical advancements and practical implementations, fostering more effective solutions and their adoption in the industry. For the sake of readability, a summary of the nine RQs is shown in Table 2 and the potential answers used for categorizing the selected primary studies are provided in Table 3.
For some of the RQs, we already know what the potential categories to group the selected primary studies are (i.e., RQ1.1, RQ1.3, RQ2.1, RQ3.2, RQ3.3). However, in the rest of the RQs we do not know in advance the groups on which we might categorize the studies according to what we find. An advantage of using a systematic mapping study (SMS) instead of a systematic literature review (SLR) is that SMS allows for more flexibility in the grouping and categorization of the included studies. In fact, an SMS allows for more exploratory research, where the groupings and categorizations of the included studies can be adjusted and refined during the review process. This flexibility can lead to the discovery of new and unexpected groupings and insights, which might be missed in a more rigid review process. Therefore, the use of an SMS in this study allows for a more open and iterative approach to the analysis, which may reveal new findings and contribute to the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the research field.
Research Question 1.1.
Research Question 1.1 states: “What is the nature of the contribution?”. This question identifies the knowledge provided by each study.
According to a study’s contribution, its nature would be classified as: “Definitional,” “Descriptive,” “Explanatory,” “Predictive,” or “Prescriptive.”
These categories come from “An Introduction to Design Science” [20], a book that lists different levels of maturity in the output of scientific research. Each category is associated with a question that is answered with the original contribution to the categorized study. RQ1.1 helps to reveal the level of maturity of the research area as a reflection of the nature of the published studies. The nature of the existing research allows to assess the existing body of knowledge, identify potential limitations, and propose future directions for research that address the specific needs and challenges of the field. It helps researchers to align their investigations with the practical realities, identify relevant research questions for unexplored gaps, and contribute to the advancement of the field by addressing specific challenges and needs. Table 4 describes each one of the alternatives.
Research Question 1.2.
Research Question 1.2 states: “What are the objectives pursued by the study?”. This question identifies the objective of each study. Two categorizations were defined to address this research question.
On the one hand, one was used to categorize the purpose of the study. This refers to the purpose of the research, the outcome of the work, or, in other words, to what the authors were aiming to achieve or improve with their contribution.
On the other hand, the other was used to categorize the means used when pursuing the goal. This represents the scientific resources used by the authors to achieve the goal. The categories represent the means used as an instrument which did not necessarily provide new knowledge or improvements to this topic. RQ1.2 reveals what the areas of interest of the researchers were according to the nature of their contributions.
By highlighting the goals and means, we can evaluate whether the study addresses specific research gaps, provides specific solutions, or contributes to theoretical and general advancements in the field of SoS security.
Neither the goal nor the means were known in advance. Their categorization was discovered during the execution of the SMS. The categorization is defined during the data synthesis stage, and it can be found in Section 4.2, where Table 9 identifies the goals and Table 10 identifies the means used to achieve the goals.
Research Question 1.3.
Research Question 1.3 stated: “What non-functional requirements (NF) requirements does the study focus on?”. According to the scope of the SMS, three non-functional requirements were described, namely “Security,” “Privacy,” and “Trust,” and their combinations. Identifying the non-functional requirements that the study focuses on is significant as it allows us to understand the specific aspects of SoS security that the research aims to address. The selected studies were classified using these non-functional requirements as shown in Table 5.
Research Question 2.1.
Research Question 2.1 stated: “How are the constituent systems of the SoS to which the study is applied orchestrated?”. The orchestration of the SoS determines how the constituent systems are configured. In the literature [21, 22], four types of orchestration are considered to categorize how the constituent systems are organized: “Directed SoS,” “Acknowledged SoS,” “Collaborative SoS,” and “Virtual SoS.” RQ2.1 helped us understand the type of orchestration used when studying SoS security as indicated by the SoS architecture.
The orchestration of constituent systems has a direct impact on the overall security and resilience of the SoS. Understanding this aspect provides insights into the mechanisms, protocols, and architectures employed to ensure secure operation and coordination within the SoS. Studies with contributions applicable to different architectures were considered as “Undetermined.” The categories used according to the SoS architecture are shown in Table 6.
Research Question 2.2.
Research Question 2.2 stated: “What SoS dimensions are being analyzed?”. SoS are so complex that they can be studied from many different perspectives (e.g., researchers could examine the SoS composition, its interaction with humans, shared resource optimization, or how each constituent system accountant participates in the SoS). This question classifies which perspectives of the SoS the authors considered in their studies. Each of the different perspectives from which a SoS can be studied is denominated a dimension for such a SoS.
The SoS under study dimension could vary widely from one study to another. By identifying the dimensions, we can assess how these characteristics influence the security considerations and challenges within the SoS. The dimensions were not known in advance. Therefore, the list of categories was established during the execution of the SMS. The different dimensions used to organize the studies are shown in Table 11 in Section 4.2.
Research Question 2.3.
Research Question 2.3 stated: “What roles are involved in the SoS security domain?”. This focused on the stakeholders in the proposed approach, that is, if the study considers any roles for specific tasks or activities. As the development and use of a SoS may involve many different stakeholders, this question is included to help us understand which roles are primarily addressed in the approaches proposed to date. Discovering the roles involved in the SoS security domain helps us comprehend the various stakeholders, their responsibilities, and their interactions within the SoS. Understanding the roles is crucial for developing comprehensive security measures that address the specific needs and concerns of each stakeholder group.
Described roles could vary, and a complete list is not known in advance. The categorization is created during the data extraction stage and can be found in Section IV.B, where the identified roles are summarized in Table 12.
Research Question 2.3.
Research Question 2.3 stated: “What roles are involved in the SoS security domain?”. This focused on the stakeholders in the proposed approach, that is, if the study considers any roles for specific tasks or activities. As the development and use of a SoS may involve many different stakeholders, this question is included to help us understand which roles are primarily addressed in the approaches proposed to date. Discovering the roles involved in the SoS security domain helps us comprehend the various stakeholders, their responsibilities, and their interactions within the SoS. Understanding the roles is crucial for developing comprehensive security measures that address the specific needs and concerns of each stakeholder group.
Research Question 3.1.
Research Question 3.1 stated: “What is the domain to which the SoS security study is applied?”. The application domain of SoS contributions may vary widely from one primary study to another.
Understanding the domain of application provides insights into the practical implications, challenges, and requirements of implementing secure SoS solutions in real-world settings.
The alternatives were not known in advance. The list of categories was generated during the execution of the SMS. The categorization is created during the data synthesis and can be found in Section IV.B, where Table 13 summarizes the studies that identified an application domain.
Research Question 3.2.
Research Question 3.2 stated: “What is the availability of the described SoS?”. This question helped identify whether the described SoS is available and/or can be used to replicate the study of its security. In many contexts, researchers are now requested or advised to make their experimentation constructs publicly available in order to facilitate further research and transition toward what is known as Open Science. To categorize availability, three alternatives were considered: “Completely,” “Partially,” and “Unavailable.” They are shown in Table 7.
Research Question 3.3.
Research Question 3.3 stated: “What is the validation of the study?”. This categorization determines the validation of the selected studies.
The validation processes employed in the studies are crucial for evaluating the reliability and credibility of the research findings. Validation ensures that the proposed security measures have been rigorously tested and verified. It provides confidence in the effectiveness and correctness of the proposed solutions for SoS security.
To categorize the validation, three alternatives were considered: “Not validated,” “Industrial validation,” and “Academia validation.” Validation has been considered as an inclusion criterion; however, there might be studies that, even though they do describe a validation, have not been conducted in that manuscript (e.g., the validation is described, is referenced, or is scheduled as a future work). For studies that conducted a validation, three different validations were considered: “Surveys,” “Case Study,” and “Experiment.” The alternatives used to categorize the validation of the study are shown in Table 8. Some studies may describe a validation but may not have executed it. This question summarizes the levels of validation of the different approaches to SoS security.
4 Conducting
This SMS has been carried out by all authors according to the previously defined planning. The goal of this stage is to obtain a catalog of primary studies that would help answer the RQs. The data extracted from the selected primary studies allow us to generate a report on the current state of the art. A search in the digital libraries was conducted in October 2020 and was then updated in February 2022.
4.1 Selecting primary studies
The identification of the primary studies was divided into three milestones. (1) A pre-search was conducted prior to the systematic search. This pre-search was used as a sample for the quality of the findings. If the results were extremely poor in terms of providing adequate answers to the RQs or if very few results were found, the planning would be modified by using other keywords. (2) A systematic search was executed once the pre-search had returned relevant results. Finally, to provide better coverage, (3) the snowball effect was applied to the selected primary studies.
Following the pre-search to adjust the search criteria, some minor changes were needed in the keywords to bring them in line with the libraries’ requirements. In particular, the acronym "SoS" was removed. In some cases, the acronym "SOS" was mistaken for, while in other cases the digital library assumed that our input was wrong and changed “SoS” to "so" or "os" in an attempt to correct the user input. Both options added excessive noise, resulting in some articles found that were not, in fact, about “SoS.”
The search string needed to be adapted to each different library. The results of applying each search string adaptation in its corresponding digital library are summarized in Fig. 2. Automated filters such as the year of publication, language, and availability of full text were applied in those libraries that supported this filtering of the results. Also, area of knowledge filter was applied were possible restricting the discipline to computer science.
SMS conducting summary
In total, among all consulted libraries, 1828 studies were found. A full list of papers was generated for each library using the tools available in each library. As mentioned in the Selection Criteria, only studies for which full articles were available were considered. The full list of papers was then imported into the Mendeley Desktop software.
The Mendeley software offers an automated tool to find potential duplicated studies. Using this mechanism, 471 articles were found to be included more than once in the catalog. Also 540 studies were found as non-primary.
The titles and abstracts of each of the remaining studies were read individually by a pair of authors, who were thus able to make a decision as to whether each study should be discarded or not. These decisions were later discussed in a plenary meeting of all authors, with the title and abstract of a work being read by a third author in the event of disagreement. A total of 604 articles were found to be not within the scope of this study. The last step in the systematic search was full reading of the remaining 210 selected articles by a pair of authors.
This full reading helped determine whether only the keywords were relevant or whether the context, too, was akin to the defined RQs. After full reading of the selected studies, some papers were found to describe systems of systems used to improve the security of a third party, rather than the application of SoS security by itself. In general terms, more than half of the works found used keywords in contexts outside the scope of our study (e.g., wars and crisis). Only 77 studies that were still relevant to our research remained.
The analysis and classification of each one of these 77 studies were assigned to a pair of authors. Each author read and classified their assigned chosen primary studies individually. The two classifications were then compared. If both authors agreed, the classification was confirmed; otherwise, discrepancies were discussed in a plenary meeting. If no agreement could be reached at the meeting, the first author was given the responsibility of analyzing the primary study in question and deciding the final classification after considering all points of view. This strategy contributed to ensuring the quality of the results and avoiding single-author bias.
Once the analysis of the studies found in the systematic search was complete, snowballing was applied. As a result, 10 more primary studies were found, which helped answer the RQs and detail the current state of the art. Then, these newly found studies were brought under the same selection criteria.
Eventually, a total of 87 studies were selected as primary studies. The results of this application of the systematic process are summarized in Fig. 2.
The 87 selected primary studies are listed in Table 25, organized as search papers and snowballing papers. Within each category, the articles are sorted alphabetically.
4.2 Data extraction
The data extraction process is a collaborative manual task that aims to categorize each selected primary study.
Analyzing data extracted from selected studies provides a general overview of trends in the area being surveyed and identifies gaps and tendencies. Here, the data were extracted considering the three perspectives previously defined while planning the SMS: Nature of the studies, SoS under study, and Study validation. The selected studies were tagged to organize them into the different RQs according to their content.
The categorization of each study during the Data extraction process was conducted in a similar way as it was during the Selecting primary studies stage. Each study was individually classified by a pair of authors. Furthermore, this stage is used to define a categorization for those RQs that initially did not have a well-defined categorization.
The pair of authors that read each full text proposed a categorization, and then all authors compared and discussed the two categorizations in plenary meetings, with the aim of agreeing on the most appropriate categorization. There were few cases in which an agreement was not reached, and the first author was responsible for rereading the full article and deciding on a classification for such a study.
The process of generating the classification criteria varied depending on the level of uncertainty associated with each question. As some questions had potential categories not constrained to a limited set of alternatives, we encountered challenges in determining the specific categories. In such cases, we had to rely on the information provided in the studies and use our best judgment to group them into relevant categories.
The first perspective is the Nature of the studies. The combination of the research nature, goal, and means of each study allowed us to identify the nature of the contributions. When reading the full texts, some categories were required to group the selected primary studies according to their goals and means as proposed for RQ 1.2.
With the aim of developing a representative grouping, we classified the studies considering nine different goals, and 16 different means to be used to achieve such goals, as summarized in Tables 9 and 10, respectively.
This classification has been the most challenging one since not all studies explicitly described their goals and means in a way that could be easily summarized by a specific keyword. Therefore, the categorization in these cases involved a certain degree of interpretation based on the available text. Consequently, the classification of goals and means is as generic or specific as the text allowed us to classify them.
The goals and means were an open list, which has been created based on an interpretation made by the authors according to the primary studies read. We are aware that other groupings could have been identified using different keywords. Notwithstanding these categorizations have been used with the objective of showing the results and should not be considered as the unique alternative. For instance, some of the used means might be grouped into more generic categories (e.g., Security analysis, Security challenges, Security controls, and Security requirements could be a single category Security). An ontology of goals and means regarding security would improve the organization of these studies and make them reliable because even within the selected articles themselves, there may be semantic divergences in used words.
In order to organize the studies and provide an answer to RQ 2.2., five dimensions of SoS emerged from the analysis of the studies that could be relevant categories, namely: “SoS Architecture,” “SoS Mission,” “SoS Management,” “Emergent Behavior” and “Human Factor.” The dimensions used to organize the studies are described in Table 11. We also included additional criteria: “None in particular,” used to include generic studies that did not identify specific dimensions, and “Multiple dimensions”, for those studies that simultaneously covered different dimensions without focusing on a specific one.
Besides, the selected studies did not explicitly define the roles that participate, neither use the concept of “role” in their scientific contributions. Therefore, it was not possible to extract explicit information regarding RQ2.3. Nevertheless, two main roles are inferred from the full text of selected primary studies and described in Table 12.
Regarding the SoS application domain categories, 11 different scenarios were identified to categorize the selected primary studies and provide an answer to RQ3.1. Additionally, a “None” application domain is included as there are some selected primary studies that did not describe any application domain (Table 13).
4.3 Data synthesis
The synthesis of the data collected from the selected primary studies and the categorization that organizes them are guided by the defined RQs. For each RQ, the studies were examined according to the defined criteria and following the procedure detailed in Section 3. Planning.
We have calculated the effect size of our results using Cohen's d to provide a quantitative measure of the magnitude of differences or relationships among the study results. This method involves dividing the difference in means between two groups by the pooled standard deviation of the data. This approach allowed us to obtain an objective measure of the effect size of our findings, aiding in the interpretation of their practical significance.
The calculus to compare two groups has been achieved by calculating the effect size as (M1–M2)/SDp, where M1 is the mean of the first group, M2 is the mean of the second group, and SDp is the pooled standard deviation of the data. We determined the pooled standard deviation as \(\sqrt{\left(\frac{\left(\left(\mathrm{n}1-1\right)*\mathrm{ s}{1}^{2}+ \left(\mathrm{n}2-1\right)*\mathrm{ s}{2}^{2}\right)}{\left(\mathrm{n}1 +\mathrm{n}2-2\right)}\right)}\), where s1 and s2 are the standard deviations of the two groups, and n1 and n2 are the sample sizes of the two groups. To compare more than two groups, we used the Cohen's d formula that provided a quantitative measure of the magnitude of differences or relationships among the means, allowing to identify statistically significant differences between groups.
Each one of the nine RQs identifies the selected primary studies and organizes those primary studies into tables, grouping them by their classification.
4.3.1 Nature of the studies
RQ1.1 stated: “What is the nature of the contribution?”. The selected studies were classified according to their nature, as shown in Table 14. It should be noted that each study was classified by considering only one nature.
According to this categorization, “Descriptive” and “Prescriptive” were by far the most common natures when addressing System of Systems security.
We applied Cohen's d technique to compare the mean values of these five different groups and found significant differences between them, with effect sizes ranging from moderate to large.
4.3.2 Research objectives
RQ1.2 stated: “What are the objectives pursued by the study?”.
The classifications to RQ1.2 were discovered during the data extraction. Each study was classified according to its main objective and means. Therefore, each selected primary study was considered only once.
On the one hand, the classification of the studies according to their goal is summarized in Table 15. The most common objective pursued in the selected primary studies was to address the need for security, followed by security controls.
On the other hand, the means used in the selected primary studies are shown in Table 16. The most common means used to achieve such goals were security validation or evaluation and security controls.
In these tables is also included the Cohen’s d so that it is possible to compare the difference among each group by considering the numbers of studies included in each one of them.
4.3.3 Non-functional requirements
RQ1.3 stated: “Which non-functional (NF) requirements is the study focusing on?”.
To respond to this question, the papers were categorized according to the non-functional requirements being addressed.
Table 17 lists the primary studies according to their non-functional requirements. Each study has been classified into only one category. Security is the predominant topic, present in more than 97% of the primary studies selected.
We have separated those studies according to those focusing only in security (70 studies in a single group) and the rest of the studies (17 studies in 3 groups), Using Cohen’s formula, we calculated the effect size of our study to be 17.40. The large effect size suggests that there is a statistically significant difference between the means of the two groups. This value can be used to compare with future updates of the used queries, to determine whether there is an increase in the diversity of studied N.F. requirements or if security remains the most important N.F. requirement studied.
4.3.4 SoS orchestration
RQ2.1 stated: “How are the constituent systems of the SoS to which the study is applied orchestrated?”.
The studies were categorized according to the SoS orchestration being addressed. However, we found that most studies did not explicitly mention the targeted SoS orchestration. In those that defined the type of SoS orchestration, collaborative SoS was prevalent. Table 18 lists the primary studies according to the SoS orchestration.
The effect size of this RQ compares the studies with undetermined SoS orchestration (60) with those that stated their SoS (13, 6, 6, and 2). The value of Cohen’s d indicates that there is a significant difference between both groups with a magnitude of 5.43.
4.3.5 SoS dimensions
RQ2.2 stated: “What SoS dimensions are being analyzed?”.
The selected studies were classified according to the SoS dimension on which they focused. This categorization started as an open list. From the analysis of the studies, five dimensions of SoS emerged that could be taken as relevant categories.
Table 19 lists the selected primary studies according to the SoS dimensions and the ratio for each dimension. Almost half of the primary studies selected focused on SoS architecture, while the second most researched SoS dimension was Emergent Behavior, with 15.52% of the studies.
When comparing the most populated group, SoS Architecture, to the other dimensions, the Cohen’s d indicates a smaller difference than in previous classifications, with a magnitude of 1.89.
4.3.6 Roles involved
RQ2.3 stated: “What roles are involved in the SoS security domain?” This categorization was left as an open list.
The selected studies did not explicitly define the roles that participate, neither use them on their scientific contributions. From our understanding, we could understand which role are participating on each study and classified them in Table 20.
This classification's effect size reveals that there is a significant difference between studies that did not mention any role (70 studies) and those that stated any role (14 and 3), with a magnitude of 11.18.
4.3.7 Domain of application
RQ3.1 stated: “What is the domain to which the SoS security study is applied?”.
Almost half of the selected primary studies did not discuss the application domain of their scientific contribution. Table 21 shows the number of primary studies selected corresponding to each domain. Note that each study was classified only once, according to its principal application domain.
We categorized the studies based on their domain application and compared the group with a domain application to the group without any specific application domain. Using Cohen's d formula, we calculated the effect size and found that the difference between these two groups was 1.98, indicating a moderate effect size.
4.3.8 SoS availability
RQ3.2 stated: “What is the availability of the described SoS?”.
The availability of the SoS being studied in the primary selected studies was not high. Less than 8% of the primary studies selected described the SoS, and no single study fully described the SoS sufficiently to allow replication of the results obtained and support future research. Table 22 lists the primary studies according to SoS availability and the corresponding ratio.
To compare studies that specify their domain of application with those that do not, we grouped them into two categories. The Cohen's d formula was used to calculate the difference between the means of these groups, which resulted in a magnitude of 16.33 apart.
4.3.9 Study validation
RQ3.3 stated: “What is the validation of the study?”.
Almost 57% of the selected primary studies did not present any kind of validation. Less than 5% of them described an industrial validation.
Table 23 lists the papers according to the types of validation offered.
The comparison between the studies showing validation and those without a specific validation resulted in a small effect size of 0.59, indicating a relatively small difference in the means between the two groups. Also, by applying the Cohen's d formula, to calculate the distance among those validated case study by the academia and the other validations we found a difference of 4.76 units, indicating a moderate effect size.
4.4 Threats to validity
Our identification of the threats to the validity of this work is based on those proposed in [23] and [24] and includes bias in the selection of the studies, inaccuracy in data extraction, and potential errors during the classification process. We also applied the mitigation strategies proposed by [24].
4.4.1 Study selection
Given the abundance of subscription libraries, gray literature, and continuous publication processes, it is impossible to achieve full coverage of every work on any given topic. To minimize this threat, we used multiple digital libraries and databases. Six digital resources (ACM DL, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, Scopus, Springer, and Web of Science) were used, containing primary studies related to the System of Systems context. We considered the scopes of the libraries used in the searches in this SMS to be large enough to achieve a reasonable completeness.
As an additional challenge, some libraries list articles dealing with “Security” for “Systems of Systems,” but some articles mention the same terms in reverse order, i.e., “Systems of Systems” applied to “Security,” which is out of the scope of this SMS. Another threat is the lack of standard language, a potential source of confusion in the research process. To mitigate this threat, we held discussion meetings with all authors and some experts in the field of SoS security research.
Since research on SoS security is iterative and incremental, we expected to find the latest versions of each study, and thus detect a trend. However, not always being able to retrieve relevant studies, we established a protocol during the planning phase. This involved contacting the authors of inaccessible articles to obtain the missing texts. We also used multiple databases and tools that executed queries from different sources to reduce errors during the search phase.
A fair selection process is guaranteed because the research questions and inclusion and exclusion criteria were defined before the research was carried out. The selection of the studies involved all the authors who participated in this SMS.
Study duplication is a threat that was not found to exist after several verifications by the authors. Here, we applied the mitigation strategy proposed by [24], checking the articles twice to detect and remove duplicates. Irrelevant articles were excluded after reading the title, abstract, and conclusions.
4.4.2 Inaccuracy in data extraction
This research involved a detailed read of each selected primary study. This activity, carried out by all authors, was potentially susceptible to inaccuracy, with different parts of the studies incorrectly identified as relevant. To make our analysis of the primary studies as objective as possible and to reduce the bias of a single author, we organized it so that each article was read by at least two different authors. Therefore, bias in study selection was countered by a cross-check review to ensure the completeness of the searches and validate the suitability of each study for inclusion. Regular meetings of all authors were also used to reach agreement on the data to be extracted and the proposed classification.
4.4.3 Potential errors during the classification process
Potential errors in the categorization of some selected studies could not be ruled out. The incorrect classification of the extracted data could be attributed to a subjective interpretation of the data. We did our best to prevent this by establishing a meticulously shared process to read and classify each work at each step of the study. As previously described, both data extraction and classification were performed in pairs to reduce single-author bias. In other words, this threat was mitigated by having two authors perform data extraction and independently check the results of each review. As all results were evaluated collectively during the plenary meetings, this guaranteed additional perspectives and a more general, shared view of the results for each RQ.
4.4.4 Study reliability
The process of conducting this study has been documented to allow its replication. However, some differences may arise when compared with this SMS. For example, other researchers may interpret the selected studies differently during the classification process. This vulnerability is more relevant in those categories that were initially left open. While the semantics of the selected studies remain the same, the meaning of the same word may be understood differently among other groups of researchers. Furthermore, the depth of analysis may also vary, and therefore the answers to the RQs could be slightly different. To prevent this threat, we have detailed the process and reasoning of our decisions.
4.4.5 Study validity
The goal of the study is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the state of the art regarding security on systems of systems. For this purpose, we also included the terms privacy and trust while conducting the study. To guarantee the validity of this study, we stated a set of RQs organized on different perspectives according to their purpose. Consequently, giving an answer to these questions by using the results of the search provides validity to this research.
5 Reporting
In this SMS, 87 papers were selected, classified, and studied after conducting the systematic search strategy in six digital libraries.
As it can be seen in Fig. 2, a 4.81% (87/1828) of the found studies were selected as relevant in the SoS security, privacy, and trust context. The results were conditioned by the relatively low number of events and journals dedicated to this topic. Accordingly, IEEE-sponsored events represented near 60% of the articles found.
The vast majority of studies that were found while conducting SMS were discarded after noticing that the research was not about the security, privacy, and trust properties of SoS, but about using a SoS to improve such properties for third parties.
In the covered years, the number of primary studies published has increased slightly. This incremental trend in research into SoS security is attributable to the recent popularity of connected devices that collaborate to achieve shared goals; two of the most notable examples of SoS adoption are smart cities and smart grids.
To provide a graphical representation of the growing trend, Fig. 3 shows how the number of articles published has increased since 2010. If research in this area continues to grow at this same rate, nearly 10 new scientific contributions focusing on SoS security are expected to be published yearly.
Number of selected published primary studies papers
The main findings of the selected primary studies are given below, divided according to the three perspectives used to organize the RQs, namely the nature of the studies, the SoS under study, and the validation of the study.
5.1 Nature of the studies
Regarding RQ1.1 “What is the nature of the contribution?”, the most published contribution types were Prescriptive and Descriptive papers, with a total of 66 papers (75.86% of the total). The nature of these published studies indicates the beginning of a new area of research, and even recent studies are still Definitional and Descriptive, which define and describe the context of the SoS, namely the “what” question. Moreover, few of the selected primary studies are Explanatory, in other words, few are focusing on the “how” or the “why” questions. As this area of research keeps attracting more and more attention and motivates research and/or transference projects, the number of Explanatory articles will grow accordingly.
There is a noticeable difference between Definitional and Prescriptive primary studies. On the one hand, Definitional studies are intended to set out the basic knowledge, to establish a common understanding. This is in fact one of the natures with the fewest published manuscripts. Prescriptive contributions, which represent the last stage of research (i.e., saying why a solution is good to solve a problem), are the most common type. These results are counterintuitive as the authors are providing solutions to problems that (according to our findings) have not yet been defined or identified in depth.
To better guide the evolution of this area, more Definitional studies would be needed, setting up a standardized understanding before providing solutions to some particular issues. More precisely, this issue has already been identified by a set of experts in a recent study [18].
To identify the purpose of each selected primary study RQ1.2. stated “What are the objectives pursued by the study?”. According to our findings, a huge number of selected primary studies aims at addressing the concepts of need for security, security controls, and security engineering. These three goals are pursued by 44.31% of the studies. The most used means to achieve such goals are the security validation/evaluation, the security controls, and the interdependencies between systems, which are used in 46.59% of the studies. As it has been already identified in related SoS SLRs, most of the research on security of SoS is intended to solve non-replicable problems. Not defining solution approaches able to be used in different contexts hinders their widespread adoption.
Among the used means, we found that most of the used means can be categorized as tactical processes rather than strategical ones. In other words, few selected primary studies have used a means that define planning. In contrast, most of the means are individual actions that help achieving their goal.
According to our findings, few works have focused on the need of establishing security standards for the constituent systems, an approach that could be categorized as a contribution to the establishment of common strategies [25,26,27,28,29]. Standardized security strategies among parties within the SoS would provide a common understanding of what security, privacy, or trust is, improving the efficiency and performance of security countermeasures.
The last question of this first dimension, RQ.1.3, states “Which non-functional (NF) requirements is the study focusing on?”. This RQ aims to identify which one among security, privacy, and trust is studied the most. The results show that the largest part of the selected studies focuses on security (96.55%), being trust and privacy barely mentioned in the literature. This is contrary to our expectation and denotes a need for greater awareness of privacy and trust concerns.
Despite the high prevalence of security-related studies, security still seems to be considered a second-class feature by itself in SoS, with a relative scarce representation in scientific libraries. With the increasing interest in keeping the Internet and online data secure, it should constitute one of the most important issues that need to be addressed for the maturity of this research area and for the sake of successfully developing industrial scenarios with the ability of guaranteeing the security for such SoSs.
5.2 SoS under study
The second dimension explored in this SMS examines how SoS is being used in the selected studies. In this meaning RQ2.1. asks for “How are the constituent systems of the SoS to which the study is applied orchestrated?”. The selected primary studies in the last eleven years did not reflect a clear trend in terms of how security is affected by specific SoS architecture. Authors are not focusing on any particular SoS architecture, and most importantly, studies are defining generic approaches, which seems to be applicable to any SoS architecture, or at least the opposite is not said. This might be motivated by one of these alternatives: (1) the approach is fairly general, (2) the authors are not aware of the architectural differences, or (3) the authors do not consider stating the SoS orchestration a relevant factor for their research. Notwithstanding, the applicability of the approaches of some studies is limited to Directed SoS and Acknowledged SoS. Such limitation is not explicitly described on the selected studies but can be inferred after reading the full text as the approaches assume the availability of certain restricted information that would not be generally available on Collaborative or Virtual SoS.
Regarding what the perspective has been used to examine the SoS, RQ2.2 poses “What SoS dimensions are being analyzed?”. After complete reading of the selected primary studies, six different perspectives or dimensions were identified. On the one hand, the current literature mainly examines the SoS architecture (45/87). The relevance of SoS architecture, identified in a previous survey [12], continues to be the most studied dimension with respect to security-related work. The study of Emergent Behavior with 15/87 studies focusing on such a dimension denotes that there is concern regarding the vulnerabilities that emerges from the combination of shared resources. Emergent Behavior is one of the most difficult dimensions to analyze on SoSs considering the variability of SoS according to their architecture or sharing policies among other factors.
On the other hand, the human factor has not yet been properly considered, even though many security issues are known to be attributable to human misunderstanding or misbehavior. Although humans are well known to be the weakest link, only two studies [26, 30] explicitly considered and focused on the human being as a component of SoS security.
In contrast, after analyzing the SoS studied in the selected studies we find that there is still room for research into the SoS Mission [31]. In this meaning, an exploited vulnerability may produce an alteration on the workflow that leads the whole SoS to take unexpected or undesired actions which might compromise the purpose of the collaboration. Further research could design mechanisms to prevent SoS from responding to unexpected or fuzzy inputs.
Concerning the human factor, the results for RQ2.3 “What roles are involved in the SoS security domain?”, shows that no roles were defined for the humans interacting with the constituent systems. There are, however, some approaches (e.g., [32]) that are intended to be automated, and roles are not applicable.
In this regard, social engineering seems to have been under-considered as a SoS vulnerability so far. Considering the human factor can allow for establishing role-based restrictions, so that only the allowed role might have access to certain resources within the SoS. Limiting the use of some resources may in fact serve as a mechanism to prevent Emergent Behavior. Therefore, research that focuses on role-based permissions may contribute to reduce unexpected or undesired emergent behaviors. In addition, more research is also needed on the inclusion of humans as constituent systems of SoS. This would not only help prevent social engineering attacks, but would also contribute to research on SoS privacy, the prevention of cascade attacks, and the definition of restrictions according to their role.
5.3 Study validation
The third analyzed dimension in this SMS is the validation of the selected primary studies. To this effect, the application domain is examined by means of RQ 3.1, “What is the domain to which the SoS security study is applied?”. This question allows us to determine the context on which the described SoS is applied for each study. After analyzing the application domain described in the selected primary studies, 11 different domains have been found. Notwithstanding, quite many studies (47.12%) did not have an explicit application domain for their approaches. Among those that do describe an application domain, the most popular application domains for SoS security were the “Smart” environment (10.34% of studies), (e.g., smart cities, smart grids, smart homes, or smart things), and military applications.
Despite the different domains of applications used in the research of the selected primary studies, there is still room for improvement to bring the results of SoS research closer to society or industry. Further research may benefit from more detailed description of SoS scenarios. In this sense, a common SoS would help replicate research results when comparing different approaches. This will not only improve research results, but also increase confidence in the approaches, resulting in more industrial validation of research.
More precisely, RQ.3.2, “What is the availability of the described SoS?”, addressed the amount of information available about the SoS being studied in the studies. The selected primary studies that describe a SoS barely provide sufficient information to allow their results to replicate. Among them, six studies partially described a SoS [33,34,35,36,37,38], and no study provides a full description of its constituent systems, shared resources, and purpose for such a joint work. One of the selected studies provides information regarding the SoS in an external web source [37].This fact limits researchers to replicate their results, to identify similar problems, or to design alternative solutions for those SoS or domains of applications.
Finally, the validation of the selected primary studies is examined in RQ3.3, “What is the validation of the study?”. Validation is another identified gap among the selected studies. Most of the research presents theoretical contributions without any formal or empirical validation. The fact that SoS are still not widely adopted in the industrial or open-source domains restricts the chances of finding case studies or benchmarks where emerging SoS security approaches can be validated.
Few contributions considered data from real or industrial environments. In fact, we only found four during the execution of this SMS [27, 36, 39, 40]. This shortcoming is reflected in the lack of real-case validations and the high number of articles (42.52%) that do not explicitly report any validation. The scarce studies validation may be related to the relative novelty of this line of research. An area that keeps being mostly theoretical and that has been skimpily extended to industry.
5.4 Statistical analysis
Based on the Cohen's calculation used to compare the studies, it was observed that the top five significant impacts on the classification obtained from the results of RQs 1.3, 3.2, 2.3, 2.1, and 3.3. RQ 1.3 have the highest difference value (17.40), which clearly indicates a segmentation in the classification of the studies. The following magnitudes are summarized in Table 24 which also includes the ones with the lesser values. Based on the effect size values in the table, it is evident that there is a considerable variation in the significance of the effects. RQs 1.3 and 3.2 exhibit a significant difference between the groups, indicating that the variable being analyzed has a considerable impact on the classification of the studies. Conversely, other comparisons using the results on RQs 2.2 and 3.3 display a smaller effect size, which implies that the difference between the groups is less relevant.
A relevant comparison is the validation of studies. The effect size of those studies with an academic validation using a case study compared with those that used any other validation is 4.76, whereas the size effect of those not having any validation in contrast to those with any validation is 0.59. This highlights the necessity of having some form of validation in research before it can be published. Nevertheless, the challenges in designing a scenario to validate the approaches often result in researchers designing their own case studies.
Overall, the effect size can aid in identifying variables that have a greater influence on the classification of studies, which can guide future research such as specific SLR focusing in a single area and facilitate the development of novel approaches in those areas that would take the higher impact.
6 Conclusions and future work
Systems of systems have been gaining popularity in recent years. As a research topic SoS is receiving increasing interest, and offers great opportunities for advancing the state of the art regarding interconnected systems. With an increasing number of devices that cooperate to reach a common goal, SoS needs to be adapted to meet the demands of current research requirements. On the other hand, digital security is today an area of paramount concern. In this sense, digital security also needs to be assessed in SoS contexts. The ability to analyze and assess the security, privacy, and trust of SoS would provide SoSs as a more suitable scenario to represent industrial SoS.
The objective of this SMS is to explore the state of the art in security, privacy, and trust in SoS to identify gaps and determine future work that would guide research in this area. To this end, we conducted a literature review for systems of systems using a systematic mapping study. As a result, 87 primary studies related to the topic were selected and analyzed.
Although several different papers have been published in the last decade, this SMS shows that little attention has been paid to the challenges imposed by the security in the SoS context where the resources are shared with the aim of achieving a common goal.
While our study aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of the literature on security for systems of systems using generic keywords, we acknowledge that our approach may have missed some relevant studies related to specific areas of security (e.g., risk management, cryptography, etc.). Therefore, we encourage future researchers to expand the search strategy with more specific keywords if they aim to focus on particular areas of security. This would enable a more focused analysis of the existing literature on the topic.
Regarding the data extraction process, it may be improved by defining a set of categories to organize the selected studies according to the area of security on which they are focusing and the means they are using to conduct such research.
In this work, we examined primary studies considering three main dimensions: (1) the nature of the studies, (2) the SoS being studied, and (3) the validation of the studies.
With regard to the nature of the studies, three gaps have been found, and correspondingly we give three hints for future work to fill them:
Gap 1
After analyzing the nature of the studies, we found that most of the primary studies selected were prescriptive. This means that most of them focused on providing a solution to problems. Whether definitional or descriptive studies are not considered in the same proportion, despite these are usually the initial steps in research according to [20]. This might be a sign of individual research that addresses an individual issue rather than a continuous research line that has studied a problem (or need) and then proposed a solution.
Future work 1.
The next research work would benefit from a larger literature that focuses on standard constructs identified and described in definitional or descriptive studies. In this sense, approaches might address standardized concepts rather than those on particular SoS instances.
Gap 2.
The need for security and security control have been the most frequent goals over the last 11 years and have been achieved mainly through security validation and evaluation, or by setting up specific security mechanisms protecting against particular vulnerabilities. In other words, currently most of the results are not easily reusable due to their nature. In contrast, very few selected primary studies have dealt with privacy or trust at the SoS level.
Future work 2.
The design of next approaches and the validation of future work would benefit from security studies focusing on replicable processes rather than focusing on particular issues. Additionally, research on privacy and trust at all levels still has room for development.
Gap 3.
Most of the pursued goals and means used by the authors so far can be interpreted as tactical approaches (i.e., a sort of construct that helps to achieve their research objective), rather than strategical ones. In our search no formal approaches have been found providing an outcome that could be appliable to any SoS. Nevertheless, SoS might benefit from adopting and applying strategical approaches being developed in akin contexts like cyber-physical or Industry 4.0 domains [41].
Future work 3.
Future work must consider providing more strategic approaches. In other words, some kind of planning could be used to explore and understand the security on SoS providing a shared security approach for constituent systems. There are some questions that might arise on any SoS and have not been addressed so far: Who is responsible for analyzing the security within a SoS? Who and how must develop counter measures to prevent the detected vulnerabilities? How might the security regarding the emergent behaviors be coordinated in a SoS? Such questions require strategical studies to consider an overall consideration of each of the constituent parties.
The second dimension explored the SoS being studied, and two gaps have been found.
Gap 4.
Most of the selected primary studies do not focus on describing the nature of the composition of the SoS (i.e., its architecture). It would be beneficial to differentiate the circumstances that allow each approach to fit some SoS. For instance, if the research result is applicable to a Directed or a Virtual composition, as the resources, and the coordination mechanisms are quite different from each other.
Future work 4.
Future work shall consider explicitly depicting the SoS scenarios on which their results apply. Thus, replicability of studies would be easier to achieve, and case studies could be compared and contrasted. Additionally, a big research question arises from this gap: How much information is required from the constituent systems to assess the security in the SoS? Which party should be responsible for gathering and analyzing such information?
Gap 5.
Regarding the perspective that has been analyzed to study the security on the SoS, the SoS architecture has been the most frequent one, whereas human factor has been barely studied, and the purpose of the collaboration has been ignored. On the one hand, humans are the weakest link and a vulnerable attack vector. On the other hand, SoS is a composition of independent systems (probably affected by the human factor), and as such it also composes different human factors, where each one may have a different culture concerning security, or even could participate with malicious intent and unpredictable behavior. In addition, constituent systems (or the human factor) not acting as expected could cause the SoS mission not to succeed. No primary study has been found that studies the security while considering the SoS mission.
Future work 5.
Research must be carried out to clearly state the relevance of the human factor in SoS. Some of the research questions that arise are as follows: How does the human factor impact the achievement of the SoS mission? May humans be a source of emergent behaviors? May a SoS become the target of social engineering attacks? Is role-based control access beneficial to secure shared resources in a SoS?
Finally, the third analyzed perspective validation of the studies highlights another gap and future work.
Gap 6.
Most of the studies did not provide a clear description of the SoS being studied, and many of them did not even define a clear application domain to explain how the SoS is deployed. The presence of scenarios based on industrial context could encourage the appearance of research contributions for the same scenario. Having a common scenario would promote standardized solutions for such issues. However, despite there being some initiatives that describe SoS scenarios using open-source resources, we were unable to identify any scenario fully described and used. Thus, the lack of a common scenario to apply research lines and general approaches is still an issue in SoS.
Future work 6.
Researchers should consider defining their case studies or industrial scenarios used in a way that makes it possible to replicate their research, or at least better understand the circumstances under which it was developed.
Further and more complex challenges with respect to SoS security would include defining common metrics or mechanisms to share requirements and specifications between one system and another. Such metrics should, for instance, be asserted by constituent systems prior to establishing communication in a SoS context that may generate vulnerabilities between systems. It could be understood as cooperation agreement contracts that each one of the constituent systems signs when joining the SoS, i.e., a sort of SoS constitution that defines the rules and behaviors (Table 25).
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
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Olivero, M.A., Bertolino, A., Dominguez-Mayo, F.J. et al. A systematic mapping study on security for systems of systems. Int. J. Inf. Secur. 23, 787–817 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-023-00757-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-023-00757-0