Skip to Secure: Securing Cyber-physical Control Loops with Intentionally Skipped Executions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a control-theoretic method of intentionally skipping control loop executions to enhance security against stealthy attacks in cyber-physical systems, reducing cryptographic overhead without sacrificing safety.

Contribution

It proposes a novel approach of controlled execution skipping as a countermeasure against cyber attacks, balancing security and resource efficiency.

Findings

Reduces cryptographic overhead in automotive CPS

Maintains system performance and safety

Effective against message integrity attacks

Abstract

We consider the problem of provably securing a given control loop implementation in the presence of adversarial interventions on data exchange between plant and controller. Such interventions can be thwarted using continuously operating monitoring systems and also cryptographic techniques, both of which consume network and computational resources. We provide a principled approach for intentional skipping of control loop executions which may qualify as a useful control theoretic countermeasure against stealthy attacks which violate message integrity and authenticity. As is evident from our experiments, such a control theoretic counter-measure helps in lowering the cryptographic security measure overhead and resulting resource consumption in Control Area Network (CAN) based automotive CPS without compromising performance and safety.