Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) consist of embedded computers with sensing and actuation capability, and are integrated into and tightly coupled with a physical system. Because the physical and cyber components of the system are tightly coupled, cyber-security is important for ensuring the system functions properly and safely. However, the effects of a cyberattack on the whole system may be difficult to determine, analyze, and therefore detect and mitigate. This work presents a model based software development framework integrated with a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed for rapidly deploying CPS attack experiments. The framework provides the ability to emulate low level attacks and obtain platform specific performance measurements that are difficult to obtain in a traditional simulation environment. The framework improves the cybersecurity design process which can become more informed and customized to the production environment of a CPS. The developed framework is illustrated with a case study of a railway transportation system.
more »
« less
Integrated simulation testbed for security and resilience of CPS
Owing1 to an immense growth of internet-connected and learning-enabled cyber-physical systems (CPSs) [1], several new types of attack vectors have emerged. Analyzing security and resilience of these complex CPSs is difficult as it requires evaluating many subsystems and factors in an integrated manner. Integrated simulation of physical systems and communication network can provide an underlying framework for creating a reusable and configurable testbed for such analyses. Using a model-based integration approach and the IEEE High-Level Architecture (HLA) [2] based distributed simulation software; we have created a testbed for integrated evaluation of large-scale CPS systems. Our tested supports web-based collaborative metamodeling and modeling of CPS system and experiments and a cloud computing environment for executing integrated networked co-simulations. A modular and extensible cyber-attack library enables validating the CPS under a variety of configurable cyber-attacks, such as DDoS and integrity attacks. Hardware-in-the-loop simulation is also supported along with several hardware attacks. Further, a scenario modeling language allows modeling of alternative paths (Courses of Actions) that enables validating CPS under different what-if scenarios as well as conducting cyber-gaming experiments. These capabilities make our testbed well suited for analyzing security and resilience of CPS. In addition, the web-based modeling and cloud-hosted execution infrastructure enables one to exercise the entire testbed using simply a web-browser, with integrated live experimental results display.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1743772
- PAR ID:
- 10076129
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 368 to 374
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Su, C.; Gritzalis, D.; Piuri, V. (Ed.)Many cyber-physical systems (CPS) are critical infrastructure. Security attacks on these critical systems can have catastrophic consequences, putting human lives at risk. Consequently, it is very important to pace CPS systems to red-teaming/blue teaming exercises to understand vulnerabilities and the progression/impact of cyber attacks on them. Since it is not always prudent to conduct such security exercises on live CPS, researchers use CPS testbeds to conduct security-related experiments. Often, such testbeds are very expensive. Since attack scripts used in red-teaming/blue-teaming exercises are, in the strictest sense of the term, malicious in nature, there is a need to protect the testbed itself from these attack experiments that have the potential to go awry. Moreover, when multiple experiments are conducted on the same testbed, there is a need to maintain isolation among these experiments so that no experiment can accidentally or maliciously affect/compromise others. In this work, we describe a novel security architecture and framework to ensure protection of security-related experiments on a CPS testbed and at the same time support secure communication services among simultaneously running experiments based on well-formulated access control policies.more » « less
-
There are various applications of Cyber-Physical systems (CPSs) that are life-critical where failure or malfunction can result in significant harm to human life, the environment, or substantial economic loss. Therefore, it is important to ensure their reliability, security, and robustness to the attacks. However, there is no widely used toolbox to simulate CPS and target security problems, especially the simulation of sensor attacks and defense strategies against them. In this work, we introduce our toolbox CPSim, a user-friendly simulation toolbox for security problems in CPS. CPSim aims to simulate common sensor attacks and countermeasures to these sensor attacks. We have implemented bias attacks, delay attacks, and replay attacks. Additionally, we have implemented various recovery-based methods against sensor attacks. The sensor attacks and recovery methods configurations can be customized with the given APIs. CPSim has built-in numerical simulators and various implemented benchmarks. Moreover, CPSim is compatible with other external simulators and can be deployed on a real testbed for control purposes.1more » « less
-
Most proposals for securing control systems are heuristic in nature, and while they increase the protection of their target, the security guarantees they provide are unclear. This paper proposes a new way of modeling the security guarantees of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) against arbitrary false command attacks. As our main case study, we use the most popular testbed for control systems security. We first propose a detailed formal model of this testbed and then show how the original configuration is vulnerable to a single-actuator attack. We then propose modifications to the control system and prove that our modified system is secure against arbitrary, single-actuator attacks.more » « less
-
In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a cyber-physical security testbed for networked electric drive systems, aimed at conducting real-world security demonstrations. To our knowledge, this is one of the first security testbeds for networked electric drives, seamlessly integrating the domains of power electronics and computer science, and cybersecurity. By doing so, the testbed offers a comprehensive platform to explore and understand the intricate and often complex interactions between cyber and physical systems. The core of our testbed consists of four electric machine drives, meticulously configured to emulate small-scale but realistic information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) networks. This setup both provides a controlled environment for simulating a wide array of cyber attacks, and mirrors potential real-world attack scenarios with a high degree of fidelity. The testbed serves as an invaluable resource for the study of cyber-physical security, offering a practical and dynamic platform for testing and validating cybersecurity measures in the context of networked electric drive systems. As a concrete example of the testbed’s capabilities, we have developed and implemented a Python-based script designed to execute step-stone attacks over a wireless local area network (WLAN). This script leverages a sequence of target IP addresses, simulating a real-world attack vector that could be exploited by adversaries. To counteract such threats, we demonstrate the efficacy of our developed cyber-attack detection algorithms, which are integral to our testbed’s security framework. Furthermore, the testbed incorporates a real-time visualization system using InfluxDB and Grafana, providing a dynamic and interactive representation of networked electric drives and their associated security monitoring mechanisms.more » « less
An official website of the United States government

