Security of cyber-physical systems

Cyber-physical system (CPS) is a term used to describe embedded devices with an interface to the
physical world. These systems are mainly fabricated from physical components (hardware), software
systems, and possibly other systems such as human systems. These components are closely combined to
deliver some specific global behaviors. CPSs generally combine sensing, networking, and computing into
physical objects to control and monitor physical environments. They play a hugely important role in modern
society, from consumer smart phones to critical infrastructures, and they far outnumber conventional
computers in the world today. CPSs applications can be seen in healthcare (insulin pumps, personal
assistance robots, and smart prosthetics), home automation (cleaning robots, smart lighting, smart heating,
ventilation, and air-conditioning systems), transport (keyless cars), and many other socially crucial arias.
Designing reliable and secure CPSs is of great importance and requires intersecting various research
domains from microelectronics to computing to the internet of things (IoT). In the last few years, it has
been demonstrated that the security of the analog interface between such CPSs, the attached sensors, and
actuators is a critical attack vector. This research project will build on the work we have started, to not only
find additional attack and defense mechanisms, but to explore the interaction of physical layer attacks with
control systems running on the embedded device. The goal is to achieve a degree of high-level directed
control of complex systems based on sensor and actuator attacks.
Designing a reliable and secure CPS is challenging. For example, modeling a CPS might be difficult since
only partial information may be available. It also might be so difficult to design cross-cutting behaviors in
CSPs such as reliability as well as security performance. Therefore, in order to achieve the objectives
described, we may have three different steps. Firstly, we model our system using mathematical equations
and try to find mathematical proofs for our hypotheses. Secondly, due to the complexity of some systems,
we may need to verify our results using simulations in MATLAB or in other programming languages. The
last step is the implementation of our solution in the real world to test and verify the mathematical and
simulation results.
This project falls within the EPSRC engineering, and information and communication technologies (ICT)
research areas