A method for testing distributed anomaly detectors

Gayathri Sugumar and Aditya Mathur

International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, 2019, vol. 27, issue C

Abstract: Distributed anomaly detectors are deployed in critical infrastructure to raise alerts when the underlying plant deviates from its expected behaviour. A novel method, referred to as SCM, that uses well defined state and command mutation operators, is proposed to test such detectors prior to their deployment. Cyber-attacks, each modelled as a timed-automaton, serve as reference attacks. A potentially large set of attacks is then created by systematically applying the mutation operators to each reference attack. In a case study, SCM was applied to a timed-automata model of a water treatment plant to assess its effectiveness in testing a distributed anomaly detector. Results attest to the value of SCM in identifying weaknesses in an anomaly detector, prior to its deployment, and improving its effectiveness in detecting process anomalies.

Keywords: Attack model; Distributed anomaly detector; Critical infrastructure; Cyber-attacks; Cyber-physical systems; Industrial control systems; Testing; Timed-automata; Water treatment plant (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ijocip:v:27:y:2019:i:c:s1874548219301210

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcip.2019.100324

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