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arXiv · 2409.16536

Time Constant: Actuator Fingerprinting using Transient Response of Device and Process in ICS

Chuadhry Mujeeb Ahmed·Matthew Calder·Sean Gunawan·Jay Prakash·Shishir Nagaraja·Jianying Zhou
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Abstract

Command injection and replay attacks are key threats in Cyber Physical Systems (CPS). We develop a novel actuator fingerprinting technique named Time Constant. Time Constant captures the transient dynamics of an actuator and physical process. The transient behavior is device-specific. We combine process and device transient characteristics to develop a copy-resistant actuator fingerprint that resists command injection and replay attacks in the face of insider adversaries. We validated the proposed scheme on data from a real water treatment testbed, as well as through real-time attack detection in the live plant. Our results show that we can uniquely distinguish between process states and actuators based on their Time Constant.

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Chuadhry Mujeeb Ahmed, Matthew Calder, Sean Gunawan, Jay Prakash, Shishir Nagaraja, Jianying Zhou. 2024-09-25. Time Constant: Actuator Fingerprinting using Transient Response of Device and Process in ICS. https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.16536

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