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Skip to Secure: Securing Cyber-physical Control Loops with Intentionally Skipped Executions

Sunandan Adhikary, Ipsita Koley, Sumana Ghosh, Saurav Kumar Ghosh, Soumyajit Dey, Debdeep Mukhopadhyay

TL;DR

This work addresses securing cyber-physical systems against stealthy data-injection attacks by introducing intentional control-skipping patterns. It develops a two-step framework: (i) synthesize and rank control-skipping patterns to preserve control performance via an LQR-Distance metric, and (ii) use SMT-based attack-vector synthesis to assess pattern resilience and select attack-resilient schedules, reducing IDS workload. The methodology is instantiated on automotive CPS (VDC and TTC), demonstrating higher attack resilience (larger minimum stealthy attack length) and meaningful CAN bandwidth savings without compromising safety. The results suggest that pattern-based control skipping can enhance security and efficiency in resource-constrained CPS, with practical impact on reducing cryptographic and communication overhead in CAN-based networks.

Abstract

We consider the problem of provably securing a given control loop implementation in the presence of adversarial interventions on data exchange between plant and controller. Such interventions can be thwarted using continuously operating monitoring systems and also cryptographic techniques, both of which consume network and computational resources. We provide a principled approach for intentional skipping of control loop executions which may qualify as a useful control theoretic countermeasure against stealthy attacks which violate message integrity and authenticity. As is evident from our experiments, such a control theoretic counter-measure helps in lowering the cryptographic security measure overhead and resulting resource consumption in Control Area Network (CAN) based automotive CPS without compromising performance and safety.

Skip to Secure: Securing Cyber-physical Control Loops with Intentionally Skipped Executions

TL;DR

This work addresses securing cyber-physical systems against stealthy data-injection attacks by introducing intentional control-skipping patterns. It develops a two-step framework: (i) synthesize and rank control-skipping patterns to preserve control performance via an LQR-Distance metric, and (ii) use SMT-based attack-vector synthesis to assess pattern resilience and select attack-resilient schedules, reducing IDS workload. The methodology is instantiated on automotive CPS (VDC and TTC), demonstrating higher attack resilience (larger minimum stealthy attack length) and meaningful CAN bandwidth savings without compromising safety. The results suggest that pattern-based control skipping can enhance security and efficiency in resource-constrained CPS, with practical impact on reducing cryptographic and communication overhead in CAN-based networks.

Abstract

We consider the problem of provably securing a given control loop implementation in the presence of adversarial interventions on data exchange between plant and controller. Such interventions can be thwarted using continuously operating monitoring systems and also cryptographic techniques, both of which consume network and computational resources. We provide a principled approach for intentional skipping of control loop executions which may qualify as a useful control theoretic countermeasure against stealthy attacks which violate message integrity and authenticity. As is evident from our experiments, such a control theoretic counter-measure helps in lowering the cryptographic security measure overhead and resulting resource consumption in Control Area Network (CAN) based automotive CPS without compromising performance and safety.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 15 sections, 4 equations, 5 figures, 2 tables, 3 algorithms.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Model Description
  3. Control System Modeling
  4. Control Design and Performance Metrics
  5. Attack Modeling
  6. A Motivating Example
  7. Proposed Methodology
  8. Synthesizing and Ranking Patterns based on Control Performance
  9. Attack Vector Synthesis
  10. Synthesizing Attack Resilient Patterns
  11. Results
  12. Case Studies
  13. Manifestation on CAN bandwidth
  14. Related Work
  15. Conclusion

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Sporadic IDS
  • Figure 2: CPS attack model
  • Figure 3: Plotting $V$ (in blue) in left y-axis and residue $r$ (in red) in right y-axis (in corresponding scales) to demonstrate the effect of stealthy attack on TTC with and without pattern-based execution. $V$ crossing the blue dashed line (safety boundary of $V$) leads to violation of safety and $r$ crossing the red dashed line ($Th$) indicates attack is detected.
  • Figure 4: a) CAN Transmissions with sporadic IDS in presence of adversary, b) Message flow for periodic execution, c) Message flow for skipped execution
  • Figure :

Theorems & Definitions (3)

  • Definition 1
  • Definition 2
  • Definition 3