Communications Security in Industry X: A Survey

Industry 4.0 is moving towards deployment using 5G as one of the main underlying communication infrastructures. Thus, the vision of the Industry of the future is getting more attention in research. Industry X (InX) is a significant thrust beyond the state-of-the-art of current Industry 4.0, towards a mix of cyber and physical systems through novel technological developments. In this survey, we define InX as the combination of Industry 4.0 and 5.0 paradigms. Most of the novel technologies, such as cyber-physical systems, industrial internet of things, machine learning, advances in cloud computing, such as edge and fog computing, and blockchain, to name a few, are converged through advanced communication networks. Since communication networks are usually targeted for security attacks, these new technologies upon which InX relies must be secured to avoid security vulnerabilities propagating into InX and its components. Therefore, in this article, we break down the security concerns of the converged InX-communication networks into the core technologies that tie these, once considered distinct, fields together. The security challenges of each technology are highlighted and potential solutions are discussed. The existing vulnerabilities or research gaps are brought forth to stir further research in this direction. New emerging visions in the context of InX are provided towards the end of the article to provoke further curiosity of researchers.