A Survey of Cyber Attacks on Cyber Physical Systems: Recent Advances and Challenges

Abstract

A cyber physical system (CPS) is a complex system that integrates sensing, computation, control and networking into physical processes and objects over Internet. It plays a key role in modern industry since it connects physical and cyber worlds. In order to meet ever-changing industrial requirements, its structures and functions are constantly improved. Meanwhile, new security issues have arisen. A ubiquitous problem is the fact that cyber attacks can cause significant damage to industrial systems, and thus has gained increasing attention from researchers and practitioners. This paper presents a survey of state-of-the-art results of cyber attacks on cyber physical systems. First, as typical system models are employed to study these systems, time-driven and event-driven systems are reviewed. Then, recent advances on three types of attacks, i.e., those on availability, integrity, and confidentiality are discussed. In particular, the detailed studies on availability and integrity attacks are introduced from the perspective of attackers and defenders. Namely, both attack and defense strategies are discussed based on different system models. Some challenges and open issues are indicated to guide future research and inspire the further exploration of this increasingly important area.