On Feasibility of Coordinated Time-Delay and False Data Injection Attacks on Cyber–Physical Systems

With the widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, cyber–physical systems (CPSs) are facing threats from cyberattacks due to the vulnerabilities exposed in IoT devices. In this article, we analyze the feasibility of a coordinated attack, named TD-FDIA, on CPS by the synchronizing the time-delay attack (TDA) and false data injection attack (FDIA). It seems that the coordinated attack is more powerful than either one. But the analysis of its stealthiness and effectiveness is challenging. In the context of the networked control system, we first propose a general formulation for the impact of TD-FDIA on the system’s stability. Then, we analyze whether the combination of TDA and FDIA can destabilize the system and remain stealthy or not with different setups when the controller is with and without an observer, and the communication protocol between the controller and actuator is UDP and TCP, respectively. The conditions required to make TD-FDIA stealthy are given in some cases. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the impact of TDA, FDIA, and TD-FDIA on the system’s stability with three different CPS scenarios.