Distorting an Adversary's View in Cyber-Physical Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces distortion-based security metrics for cyber-physical systems, demonstrating that minimal pre-shared keys can effectively confuse adversaries and protect data integrity during transmission.

Contribution

It proposes new distortion-based security metrics for CPS communication, showing that a few bits of shared keys suffice for effective adversary confusion.

Findings

Distortion metrics effectively protect CPS data.

Few pre-shared bits are sufficient for security.

Enhanced security with minimal key requirements.

Abstract

In Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), inference based on communicated data is of critical significance as it can be used to manipulate or damage the control operations by adversaries. This calls for efficient mechanisms for secure transmission of data since control systems are becoming increasingly distributed over larger geographical areas. Distortion based security, recently proposed as one candidate for CPSs security, is not only more appropriate for these applications but also quite frugal in terms of prior requirements on shared keys. In this paper, we propose distortion-based metrics to protect CPSs communication and show that it is possible to confuse adversaries with just a few bits of pre-shared keys.