Advanced Persistent Threats and Their Defense Methods in Industrial Internet of Things: A Survey

The industrial internet of things (IIoT) is a key pillar of the intelligent society, integrating traditional industry with modern information technology to improve production efficiency and quality. However, the IIoT also faces serious challenges from advanced persistent threats (APTs), a stealthy and persistent method of attack that can cause enormous losses and damages. In this paper, we give the definition and development of APTs. Furthermore, we examine the types of APT attacks that each layer of the four-layer IIoT reference architecture may face and review existing defense techniques. Next, we use several models to model and analyze APT activities in IIoT to identify their inherent characteristics and patterns. Finally, based on a thorough discussion of IIoT security issues, we propose some open research topics and directions.