Detection of Perfect Stealthy Attacks on Cyber-Physical Systems Subject to Measurement Quantizations: A Watermark-Based Strategy

Yu-Ang Wang; Zidong Wang; Lei Zou; Bo Shen; Hongli Dong

IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica

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Y.-A. Wang, Z. Wang, L. Zou, B. Shen, and H. Dong, “Detection of perfect stealthy attacks on cyber-physical systems subject to measurement quantizations: A watermark-based strategy,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1–12, Jan. 2025.

Citation:

Y.-A. Wang, Z. Wang, L. Zou, B. Shen, and H. Dong, “Detection of perfect stealthy attacks on cyber-physical systems subject to measurement quantizations: A watermark-based strategy,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1–12, Jan. 2025.

Citation:

Y.-A. Wang, Z. Wang, L. Zou, B. Shen, and H. Dong, “Detection of perfect stealthy attacks on cyber-physical systems subject to measurement quantizations: A watermark-based strategy,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 1–12, Jan. 2025.

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Detection of Perfect Stealthy Attacks on Cyber-Physical Systems Subject to Measurement Quantizations: A Watermark-Based Strategy

Funds: This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61933007, 62273087, 62273088, U21A2019), the Shanghai Pujiang Program of China (22PJ1400400), the Hainan Province Science and Technology Special Fund of China (ZDYF2022SHFZ105), the Royal Society of UK, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

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Author Bio:
Yu-Ang Wang received the B.Eng. degree in automation from Shandong University of Science and Technology in 2020. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Engineering from Donghua University. Since February 2023, she has been a Visiting Ph.D. Student with the Department of Computer Science, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, U.K.Her current research interests include the control and filtering of networked system, cyber-attacks, watermarking, attack detection, token bucket protocol, and state estimation with energy harvesting constraints.Miss Wang is a very active reviewer for many international journals

Zidong Wang (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.Sc. degree in mathematics in 1986 from Suzhou University, and the M.Sc. degree in applied mathematics in 1990 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1994, both from Nanjing University of Science and Technology.He is currently a Professor of dynamical systems and computing in the Department of Computer Science, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK. From 1990 to 2002, he held teaching and research appointments in universities in China, Germany and the UK. His research interests include dynamical systems, signal processing, bioinformatics, control theory and applications. He has published a number of papers in international journals. He is a holder of the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship of Germany, the JSPS Research Fellowship of Japan, William Mong Visiting Research Fellowship of Hong Kong.Prof. Wang serves (or has served) as the Editor-in-Chief for International Journal of Systems Science, the Editor-in-Chief for Neurocomputing, the Editor-in-Chief for Systems Science and Control Engineering, and an Associate Editor for 12 international journals including IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, and IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics—Part C. He is a Member of the Academia Europaea, a Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, an Academician of the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences, a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of program committee for many international conferences

Lei Zou received the Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering in 2016 from Harbin Institute of Technology.He is currently a Professor with the College of Information Science and Technology, Donghua University. From October 2013 to October 2015, he was a Visiting Ph.D. Student with the Department of Computer Science, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK. His research interests include control and filtering of networked systems, moving-horizon estimation, state estimation subject to outliers, and secure state estimation.Prof. Zou serves (or has served) as an Associate Editor for IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, Neurocomputing, International Journal of Systems Science, and International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems, a Senior Member of IEEE, a Senior Member of Chinese Association of Automation, a Regular Reviewer of Mathematical Reviews, and a very active reviewer for many international journals

Bo Shen received the B.Sc. degree in mathematics from Northwestern Polytechnical University in 2003, and the Ph.D. degree in control theory and control engineering from Donghua University in 2011.He is currently a Professor with the College of Information Science and Technology, Donghua University. From 2009 to 2010, he was a Research Assistant with the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. From 2010 to 2011, he was a Visiting Ph.D. Student with the Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University, London, UK. From 2011 to 2013, he was a Research Fellow (scientific co-worker) with the Institute for Automatic Control and Complex Systems, University of DuisburgEssen, Duisburg, Germany. He has authored or coauthored around 80 papers in refereed international journals. His research interests include nonlinear control and filtering, stochastic control and filtering, as well as complex networks and neural networks.Prof. Shen serves (or has served) as an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member for eight international journals, including Systems Science and Control Engineering, Journal of the Franklin Institute, Asian Journal of Control, Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing, Neurocomputing, Assembly Automation, Neural Processing Letters, and Mathematical Problems in Engineering. He is a Program Committee Member for many international conferences, and a very active reviewer for many international journals

Hongli Dong received the Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology in 2012.From 2009 to 2010, she was a Research Assistant with the Department of Applied Mathematics, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. From 2010 to 2011, she was a Research Assistant with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. From 2011 to 2012, she was a Visiting Scholar with the Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, U.K. From 2012 to 2014, she was an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow with the University of Duisburg--Essen, Duisburg, Germany. She is currently a Professor with the Artificial Intelligence Energy Research Institute, Northeast Petroleum University. She is also the Director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Networking and Intelligent Control. Her current research interests include robust control and networked control systems.Prof. Dong is a very active reviewer for many international journals
Corresponding author: Zidong Wang, e-mail: zidong.wang@brunel.ac.uk
Received Date: 2024-04-13
Revised Date: 2024-07-26
Accepted Date: 2024-08-03

Available Online: 2024-10-17

Abstract

Abstract

In this paper, the attack detection problem is investigated for a class of closed-loop systems subjected to unknown-but-bounded noises in the presence of stealthy attacks. The measurement outputs from the sensors are quantized before transmission. A specific type of perfect stealthy attack, which meets certain rather stringent conditions, is taken into account. Such attacks could be injected by adversaries into both the sensor-to-estimator and controller-to-actuator channels, with the aim of disrupting the normal data flow. For the purpose of defending against these perfect stealthy attacks, a novel scheme based on watermarks is developed. This scheme includes the injection of watermarks (applied to data prior to quantization) and the recovery of data (implemented before the data reaches the estimator). The watermark-based scheme is designed to be both time-varying and hidden from adversaries through incorporating a time-varying and bounded watermark signal. Subsequently, a watermark-based attack detection strategy is proposed which thoroughly considers the characteristics of perfect stealthy attacks, thereby ensuring that an alarm is activated upon the occurrence of such attacks. An example is provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed mechanism for detecting attacks.
- Attack detection,
- cyber-physical systems (CPSs),
- perfect stealthy attacks,
- watermark-based strategy

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References(49)

References

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Detection of Perfect Stealthy Attacks on Cyber-Physical Systems Subject to Measurement Quantizations: A Watermark-Based Strategy

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