Dynamic Attack Detection in Cyber-Physical Systems with Side Initial State Information

This paper studies the impact of side initial state information on the detectability of data deception attacks against cyber-physical systems, modeled as linear time-invariant systems. We assume the attack detector has access to a linear measurement of the initial system state that cannot be altered by an attacker. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for an attack to be undetectable by any dynamic attack detector under each specific side information pattern. Additionally, we relate several attack attributes with its detectability, in particular, the time of first attack to its stealthiness, and we characterize attacks that can be sustained for arbitrarily long periods without being detected. Specifically, we define the zero state inducing attack, the only type of attack that remains dynamically undetectable regardless of the side initial state information available to the attack detector. We design a dynamic attack detector that detects all detectable attacks. Finally, we illustrate our results with an example of a remotely piloted aircraft subject to data deception attacks.