Adaptive Thresholding For Deception Attack Detection in Networked Control Systems
Adaptive Thresholding For Deception Attack Detection in Networked Control Systems
Abstract—Security of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) against attack detection and isolation in CPS seems closely related to
Cyber attacks is an important yet challenging problem. This the fault detection and isolation problem. Cyber attacks are
paper studies the problem of Cyber attack detection in the modeled as additive signals to both state evolution and sensor
Networked Control Systems (NCS) in the presence of network
delays and unknown disturbances. The first part of this paper measurement equations. This problem is generally solved by
describes a dynamic modelling of the NCS under network delays using the analytical redundancy approach, which consists of
and deception attack and gives an attack strategy that a malicious two steps: residual generation and residual evaluation. The
agent located inside the network can use to act on the physical residuals are first generated by using traditional methods (i.e.
world. The second part shows how to reveal the presence of the the Kalman filter or the parity space approaches) and they are
adversary by using an adaptive threshold. The results of the
detection scheme are illustrated through an illustrative example. then evaluated by utilizing change detection techniques (see,
among others, [11], [12]).
Besides Cyber attacks, several network-induced effects arise
I. I NTRODUCTION when dealing with the NCS, such as time-delays [13], [14],
Recent technological advances are revolutionizing our abil- packet losses [15], [16] and quantization problems [17], [18].
ity to build distributed Networked Control Systems (NCS) The control issues of NCS have attracted attention of many
where the communication network plays an extremely im- researchers particularly taking into account network-induced
portant role in geographically dispersed NCS, stressed in effects. Delays are known to degrade drastically the perfor-
[1]. Central, decentralized or distributed NCS are critical to mances of the control systems, for this reason, many works
system operation in various infrastructures such as electric aimed at reducing the effects of induced network delays on
power grids, transportation systems, communication networks, NCS [19], [20]. The effects of a short delay, having duration
oil and gas pipelines, waste-water treatment systems, water less than one sampling period, has been proposed in the
distribution and irrigation networks. Besides failures of com- literature. For instance, the authors of [21] formulate the delay
ponents, NCS are vulnerable to Cyber physical attacks incor- effect as an unknown input with variable distribution matrix
porating Cyber and physical activities into a malicious attack. by using Taylor approximation. In [22] mixed delay composed
In recent years, a sharp rise in the number of Cyber attacks has of constant part and random part is considered. The delay
been reported. Consequently, many researchers have shown effect is approximated by a polytopic uncertainties and use the
a great concern for the analysis of vulnerabilities of CPS reference model fault detection technique [23] for the design
integrating physical processes, computational resources, and of the observer based fault detection. In industrial applications,
communication capabilities to external attacks (see [2]). the accuracy of both cyber attacks and induced time delays in
Cyber physical attacks in CPS summarized in [3] can be di- Networked Control systems is a possible scenario but only
vided into three categories as follows: Denial of Service (DoS) a few studies have examined this case. Therefore needs to
attacks in [4] when adversaries prevent controllers from re- design a detection scheme for cyber-attack in NCS in the
ceived sensors measurement or the plant from received control presence of induced time delays. The objective of this study
laws, deception attacks in [5] when adversaries inject false data is to investigate a deception attack detection strategy in NCS
on control signals or on information transmitted by sensors to and reducing the effect of delays caused by the communication
the plant via communication channels, replay attacks in [6], networks.
covert attacks in [7], and finally physical attacks on sensors
and actuators close to faults considered in traditional model-
based Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) schemes studied by This paper is organized as follows. A problem formulation is
[8] and [9]. The last generation of malwares of type Stuxnet given in section II. Section III, includes the design of an attack
infecting Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) or Replay strategy that a malicious agent can use to successfully realize
attack in [10] can be viewed as deception attack on control his attack. In section IV, an adaptive threshold is implemented
signals coordinated with the generation of artificial delays on for the detection of the cyber attack. An illustrative example
measurements. It has been shown in the literature that the is given in section V before to conclude in section VI.
II. M ODEL FOR NCS UNDER ATTACK AND may vary, depending on the network traffic, medium access
COMMUNICATION DELAY protocol and the hardware.
Let us consider the plant model of the NCS with embedded Furthermore, the following assumption are taken into account.
sensors, actuators and the local controller, described by the Assumption 1: for data acquisition it is supposed that the
following linear discrete-time stochastic system sensor is time-driven and the sampling period is denoted by
( T . By event-triggered controller or actuator, we mean that
xk+1 = Axk + Buk + Ba aak + Ex dk calculation of the new control or actuator signal is started as
(1)
yk = Cxk + Da ask + Ey dk soon as the new control or actuator information arrives.
Assumption 2: unknown time-varying network induced de-
where xk ∈ ℜn is the state vector, yk ∈ ℜm the measurement lay at time step k is denoted by τk and τk = τksc + τkca is
output vector, uk ∈ ℜp the control input vector. aak ∈ ℜp smaller than one sampling period τk T where τksc and τkca
denotes the actuator attack vector, ask ∈ ℜm denotes the sensor are the sensor-to-controller delay and the controller-to-actuator
attack vector and dk is the vector of noises. The matrices delay, respectively. There is no packet dropout in the networks.
A, B, Ex , Ey ,Ba and Da are assumed to be known with Taking into account the network-induced delay, the control
appropriate dimensions. The system is considered to be in input (zero hold is assumed) over a sampling interval [kT, (k+
nominal behavior if aak = 0 and ask = 0 for all k 0. 1)T ] is given by
The state and measurement noises Ex dk and Ey dk are zero (
mean uncorrelated Gaussian random sequences with uk−1 t ∈ [kT, kT + τk ]
ut = (7)
( T ) uk t ∈ [kT + τk , (k + 1)T ]
Ex dk Ex dj W 0
E = δk,j According to the property of definite integral, if we introduce
Ey dk Ey dj 0 V (2)
the control increment ∆uk = uk−1 − uk , the plant (1) with
with W 0, V > 0 unknown disturbance vector and attack vector can be described
The initial state x0 , assumed to be uncorrelated with Ex dk by
and Ey dk , is na Gaussian random variable with E {x0 } = x̄0
T
o xk+1 = A xk + B uk + B∆ ∆uk + B∆k dτk
and P0 = E (x0 − x̄0 )(x0 − x̄0 ) 0. The pair (A, C) +Ba aak + Ex dk (8)
is detectable, (A, B) stabilizable. s
yk = Cxk + Da ak + Ey dk
Designed under the assumption that the system is in nominal
behavior, an observer for system (1) can be constructed in the where the delay effect can be considered as an unknown input
form of the following detection filter as with time variant distribution matrix B∆k , see [24] for more
( details of the model parameter calculation.
x̂k+1 = Ax̂k + Buk + L(yk − ŷk ) By defining
(3)
ŷk = C x̂k
B uk Ex
The residual generator is given by Bka = , uak = a
, Ex,k = ,
B∆ ∆uk B∆k
r̄k = V (yk − ŷk )
(4) a Ey a dk
Ey = and dk =
0 dτk
where L and V are the observer gain and postfilter designed to
fulfill attack detection and isolation requirements. Let define it results that the model of (8) is rewritten as:
the estimation error as ε̄k = xk − x̂k . From (3) and (4) it (
xk+1 = Axk + Bka uak + Ba aak + Ex,k a
dak
results that the anomaly detector error dynamic propagates as (9)
follows yk = Cxk + Da ask + Eya dak
ε̄k+1 = (A − LC)ε̄k + (B̄a − LD̄a )ak + (Ex − LEy )dk (5) III. ATTACKER MODEL
In deception attacks, the adversary attempts to prevent the
r̄k = V C ε̄k + V D̄a ak + V Ey dk (6) actuator or the sensor from receiving an integrity data. His goal
where is to modify the control action uk or the sensor measurements
aak
yk from their real values by sending a false information from
D̄a = 0 Da , B̄a = Ba 0 and ak = . The
ask controllers or sensors. The false information can be a wrong
observer gain L is designed to stabilize the matrix (A − LC). sender identity, an incorrect sensor measurement or control
In addition to the bad effects of a successful Cyber-attack on input, an incorrect time when a measurement was observed.
the networked control system, induced time delays can be a The attacker can also inject a bias data that cannot be detected
source of instability and degradation of control performance. in the system and launch these attacks by obtaining the secret
When the system is controlled over a network, we have to keys or by compromising some controllers or sensors. In
take into account the sensor to controller delays and controller this section, we assume that the malicious agent can inject a
to actuator delays. Note that delays, in general, cannot be false control input into the actuator channels or a false sensor
considered as constant and known. Network induced delays measurement into the sensor channels at the intrusion time k0 .
The attacker prefers to perform his malicious action within a properties of robustness against network delay effects. Let us
short period due to the limit resources. Assume that to compute define the following vector, described by
the appropriate attack policy the attacker has access to the
x
detailed model of the system. The deception attack on the zk = k . (12)
εk
actuator can be then modeled as
Ba = B The overall system dynamics, which includes the plant and
ρak ∈ {0, 1}, ∀ k (10) the residual generator, can be expressed as
a
ak = ρak bak − ρak uk
(
zk+1 = Ãzk + B̃k uak + B̃a ak + Ẽx,k a
dak
(13)
where bak is a deceptive data that the adversary attempts to rk = V C̃zk + V D̄a ak + V Eya dak
launch on the actuator and where the binary variable ρak a
represents the acknowledgement signal indicating the status A 0 Bk
where à = , B̃k = , C̃ = 0 C ,
of the presence or not of an attack with ρak = 1 ∀k k0 0 A − LC 0
when the system is under actuator deception attack and ρak = 0 a Ex ˜ B̄ a
Ẽx,k = a and B a =
otherwise. Ex,k − LEy B̄a − LD̄a
The deception attack on the sensor can be then modeled as It is assumed that the plant is mean square stable. Since the
Da = C observer gain matrix L has no influence on the system in (13).
ρsk ∈ {0, 1}, ∀ k (11) The overall system dynamic including the plant and residual
s
ak = ρsk bsk − ρsk xk generator is mean square stable. The dynamics of the residual
generator can be expressed as
where bsk is a deceptive data that the adversary attempts
to launch on the sensor and where the binary variable ρsk a
εk+1 = (Ã − LC̃)εk + (0 B̃k )uak + B̃a ak + Ẽx,k dak (14)
represents the acknowledgement signal indicating the status
of the presence or not of a sensor Cyber attack with ρsk = 1 rk+1 = V (C̃εk + D̄a ak + Eya dak ) (15)
∀k k0 when the system is under sensor deception attack The post-filter V and the observer gain matrix L are the
and ρsk = 0 otherwise. design parameters for the residual signal. The main objective
Remark 1: If bak = 0 or bsk = 0 then a special case of the design of the residual generator is to improve the
of cyber attacks called Denial of Service (DoS) attack on sensitivity of the FD system to abnormal behavior while
the actuators or on the sensors occurs, where the objective keeping robustness against disturbances. Thus, the selection
of the adversary is to prevent the actuator from receiving of the design parameters L, V can be formulated as an
control commands or the controller from receiving sensor optimization problem such as
measurements, respectively.
Remark 2: As it has been shown in many works, [6], k Gra
z k2
sup J = sup (16)
[7], [25], that the attack vectors aak and ask can be designed L, V k Grd
z k∞
to disrupt the system while bypassing traditional anomaly
where
detectors. Thus, it becomes necessary to find the security −1
analysis process that makes such attacks detectable. Some Grd = V C̃ zI − Ã + L C̃ a
Ẽx,k + V Eya (17)
z
proposed solutions to make these stealthy attacks detectable
have been presented in [26] or [27] and show that the stealthy −1
strategy of the adversary is destroyed by modifying the sys- Gra
z = V C̃ zI − Ã + L C̃ B˜a + V D̄a (18)
tem’s structure or by data losses on the control signals due to the optimal solution to the optimisation problem defined in
unreliable communication networks. In this paper, we consider (16) can be carried out using the so-called unified solution as
the problem of detectable attacks detection. mentioned in [28].
IV. D ECEPTION ATTACK D ETECTION S CHEME B. Adaptive threshold
It has been shown that the attack detection and isolation Based on the obtained system model (13), we design in this
is closely related to the fault detection and isolation problem section an adaptive threshold allowing to detect the deception
that can be generally solved by using the analytical redun- attack. The decision for successful attack detection is based
dancy approach, which consists of residual generation and on the comparison between the results obtained from the
residual evaluation. In this section, our objective is to design residual evaluation function and the determined threshold. The
the anomaly detector to detect the deception attack while following residual evaluation function is adopted
considering network induced effects.
N
!T N
! 12
1 X 1
A. Robust residual generation X
Jke = k rk k 2,N = rk−i rk−i
The objective here is to design a robust residual generator N N
i=1 i=1
similar to the one given by equation (3) with the additional (19)
where N is the length of the evaluation window. In the absence The proof of Theorem2 is similar to the one mentioned in
of the attack, the mean of rk can be expressed (when ak = 0) [23], hence it is omitted. Note that ∆uk is set to the allowed
as upper bound of the control input max(∆uk ). Based on the
a
εk+1 = (Ã − LC̃)εk + Ẽx,k dak (20) results on the bounds of the static feature of the residual signal
described previously, the threshold can be determined as
rk+1 = V (C̃εk + Eya dak ) (21) 1
Jkth = {αN sup(σrk )} 2 (27)
The estimation of bound of mean of rk + 1 can be carried
out using the following theorem where
Theorem 1: Given system (20)-(21) and the constants k
X
α1 > 0, α2 > 0, and assume that ε0 = 0, (∆uTj ∆uj )) + γ2 δd,∞ + ∆uTk ∆uk
sup(σrk ) = γ1 (δd,2 +
kdak k2 ≤ δd,2 , {(dak )T (dak )} 2 ≤ δd,∞
1
then ∀k j=0
(28)
r̄kT r̄k = α1 δd,2 + α2 δd,∞
The parameter 0 < αN < 1 is a constant value depends on the
if the following two LMI’s hold for some P > 0 length of the evaluation window N used to reduce the false
alarm rate. The constant parameters γ1 and γ2 represents the
a
P P (Ã − LC̃) P Ẽx,k bounds on the variance of the residual signal.
(Ã − LC̃)T P P 0 >0 (22) Note that because the residual signal is a white noise
J Inertia 2 kg m2 0.35
0.3
Back-EMF 1 Vs/rad = 1
k constant Nm/A 0.25
L Inductance 5H 0.05
0
r Resistance 20 ohms 0 500 1000 1500 2000
time
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