Detection of cyber-attacks in systems with distributed control based on support vector regression

Abstract

Concept of Industry 4.0 and implementation of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and Internet of Things (IoT) in industrial plants are changing the way we manufacture. Introduction of industrial IoT leads to ubiquitous communication (usually wireless) between devices in industrial control systems, thus introducing numerous security concerns and opening up wide space for potential malicious threats and attacks. As a consequence of various cyber-attacks, fatal failures can occur on system parts or the system as a whole. Therefore, security mechanisms must be developed to provide sufficient resilience to cyber-attacks and keep the system safe and protected. In this paper we present a method for detection of attacks on sensor signals, based on e insensitive support vector regression (e-SVR). The method is implemented on publicly available data obtained from Secure Water Treatment (SWaT) testbed as well as on a real-world continuous time controlled electro-pneumatic positioning system. In both cases, the method successfully detected all considered attacks (without false positives).