A Cyber-Physical Risk Assessment Approach for Internet of Things Enabled Transportation Infrastructure

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript presents an approach to identify cyber-physical attacks to the sensing area of transportation infrastructures equipped with Internet-of-Things devices. The effect of physical control barriers, cyber control barriers and integrated control barriers on reducing the risk level is discussed in depth. Indeed, with the rapidly increasing application of sensing networks, their cyber security is crucial. This manuscript studies an important problem and provides a new view. I have a few suggestions for the authors to consider.

1)     As a research paper, the background information and descriptions of works in literature may be too long and detailed. I would suggest abbreviating those parts substantially such that the paper could focus on the author’s new findings. For example, the introductory materials in Section 2 might be combined into Section 1.

2)     As artificial intelligent approaches have already been used to detect cyber attacks in many scenarios and also the natural hazards to transportation infrastructures, why existing techniques cannot be directly applied to the case studied in this paper? A discussion may be helpful for readers to understand the advantage of the proposed approach.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

A word document has been uploaded that includes all the modifications 

related to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 

The prepared manuscript is quite interesting. The structure of the manuscript is unusual, but it is justified in terms of the logic of the research and arguments carried out. The authors maturely reviewed the literature regarding essential research topics, referring to inspiring publishers. They used the current knowledge. While the manuscript has several shortcomings, shortcomings make quite an essential contribution to science. I believe the authors will deal with my comments.

 

 

The introduction lacks a sentence describing the purpose of the manuscript. Must be completed.

 

Below Table 1 there should be a note why there are different scale spans (ranges) for the variable "Decision scale scores, Xi". These can be described as limitations.

 

Although they appear in the main text, the symbols used in formula (1) should also be described directly below it.

 

There is no information in the text as to whether formula (1) is a general formula used in practice (if so, indicate the source, or whether its originators are the authors of the manuscript).

 

Table 2 should be written in the notes based on which criterion was made into risk (low, medium, high) - because the thresholds may raise doubts. Supported by literature (instead of in the main text) - explanations should be extended with the statement that they are universal thresholds or commonly known (if any).

 

There is no source of the study under Table 3 (based on which it was developed, whether it is the author's study or taken from the literature).

 

The methodology of creating scenarios should be explained (it is methodically non-transparent), and there is also no information on the origin of the data (one or two sentences should indicate the source of the data based on which the individual calculations were made - preferably under tables/figures separately). There is also no description of the main parameters for Monte Carlo. This needs to be completed.

 

The list of references has not been prepared under the requirements of the publisher.

Also, not all authors of a given publication have been disclosed on the list of references, which is inappropriate practice.

 

However, I believe this is an oversight due to the use of the citation manager and the loaded style.

 

Maybe the authors will also find inspiration in:

Elżbieta SZARUGA and Elżbieta ZAŁOGA “Text Mining as a Tool for Detecting Latent Variables for Modeling of Maritime Transport Security” Proceedings of the 38th International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA), 23-24 November 2021, Seville, Spain, ISBN: 978-0-9998551-7-1, ISSN: 2767-9640, pp: 1105-1118.

Monika Kulisz & Jerzy Lipski & Agnieszka Bojanowska, 2020. "Purchase Decision Support with the Internet of Things-Based Systems," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, in: Kesra Nermend & Małgorzata Łatuszyńska (ed.), Experimental and Quantitative Methods in Contemporary Economics , chapter 0, pages 173-185, Springer.

 

Góod luck!

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

A word document has been uploaded that includes all the modifications 

related to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All my comments have been addressed and the manuscript has been seriously revised.