MULTILEVEL EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF A SMART-REGION CYBER-RESILIENCE METHODOLOGY: FROM FORMAL VERIFICATION TO HARDWARE-IN-THE-LOOP TESTING, PILOT DEPLOYMENT, AND EXTERNAL REPLICATION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32689/maup.it.2026.2.11Keywords:
experimental validation, hardware-in-the-loop, external replication, cyber-resilience maturity, attack scenarios, baselines, reproducibility, smart regionAbstract
Object of study. Multilevel validation of a cyber-resilience methodology for interdependent smart-region services. Problem. Results from formal verification, simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, pilot deployment, and external replication are not interchangeable; missing claim-to-evidence links encourage unsupported generalization. Purpose. To develop and partially verify a reproducible V0-V5 validation programme. Methods. The programme defines twelve attack and failure scenarios A1-A12, six resource-comparable configurations B0-B5, and paired ablations of the evidence pipeline, digital twin, and policy controller; it uses synchronized traces, common event markers, confidence intervals, effect sizes, and multiple-testing correction. Results. In the available V3 aggregates, B5 versus B1 reduced mean detection time from 43,1 to 8,5 s (80,3%) and recovery time from 399 to 122 s (69,4%), achieved 98,7% integrity-verification accuracy with less than 6% overhead, and increased the normalized resilience index from 0,71 to 0,93. Distinctive features. Unlike single-node assessment, the architecture combines validation levels, claim-to-evidence traceability, and cumulative I0-I4 maturity gates while separating laboratory causality, operational feasibility, and external transferability. The changes are explained by the joint operation of a verified telemetry pipeline, a cross-sector dependency model, and a constrained recovery controller. Practical use is appropriate in controlled regional infrastructure with an equal resource budget, synchronized measurements, verified safety rules, and explicit evidence boundaries. Conclusions. The aggregates support a descriptive proof of concept for the integrated system, but component-level causality requires run-level logs, completed ablations, a V4 pilot, and independent V5 replication.
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