Exploring the consequences of cyber attacks on Powertrain Cyber Physical Systems

TL;DR

This paper models the effects of cyber attacks on vehicle powertrain systems, focusing on how malicious interventions in sensors and communication can alter engine performance.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model simulating cyber attack scenarios on vehicle powertrain systems, highlighting potential impacts on engine speed and control.

Findings

Cyber attacks can significantly disrupt engine speed control.

Sensor and communication attacks have different impacts on system behavior.

First modeling approach for realistic cyber attack consequences on modern vehicles.

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel approach for the study of cyber-attacks against the powertrain of a generic vehicle. The proposed model is composed by a a generic Internal Combustion engine and a speed controller, that communicate through a Controller Area Network (CAN) bus. We consider a threat model composed by three representative attack scenarios designed to modify the output of the model, thus affecting the rotational speed of the engine. Two attack scenarios target both vehicle sensor systems and CAN communication, while one attack scenario only requires injection of CAN messages. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt of modeling the consequences of realistic cyber attacks against a modern vehicle.