Towards Adversarial Control Loops in Sensor Attacks: A Case Study to Control the Kinematics and Actuation of Embedded Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces an adversarial control loop framework for real-time sensor attacks on control systems, demonstrating how external adversaries can manipulate embedded systems by leveraging feedback from physical signals.

Contribution

It presents a novel real-time attack methodology using feedback-guided perturbations to influence control systems without internal access, filling a gap in physical-level attack research.

Findings

Successful real-time manipulation of control systems demonstrated

Feedback-guided injection signals effectively influence physical processes

Attacks operate without internal system access

Abstract

Recent works investigated attacks on sensors by influencing analog sensor components with acoustic, light, and electromagnetic signals. Such attacks can have extensive security, reliability, and safety implications since many types of the targeted sensors are also widely used in critical process control, robotics, automation, and industrial control systems. While existing works advanced our understanding of the physical-level risks that are hidden from a digital-domain perspective, gaps exist in how the attack can be guided to achieve system-level control in real-time, continuous processes. This paper proposes an adversarial control loop-based approach for real-time attacks on control systems relying on sensors. We study how to utilize the system feedback extracted from physical-domain signals to guide the attacks. In the attack process, injection signals are adjusted in real time based on the extracted feedback to exert targeted influence on a victim control system that is continuously affected by the injected perturbations and applying changes to the physical environment. In our case study, we investigate how an external adversarial control system can be constructed over sensor-actuator systems and demonstrate the attacks with program-controlled processes to manipulate the victim system without accessing its internal statuses.