False Data Injection Attacks on Networked Control Systems: A Stackelberg Game Analysis

In this paper, a security problem in networked control systems (NCS) is studied. In a standard linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control scenario in NCS, a so-called false data injection attack could be launched by a malicious attacker to deteriorate the system performance without being detected. To defend against such attacks, a defender on the NCS side needs to allocate defense resources among the sensors to secure the data, and the defense investment determines the costs of compromising certain sensors. After observing the defender’ action, the attacker decides the target sensors to compromise. While both sides are subject to the resource constraints, the interactive decision-making between the defender and the attacker is investigated in a Stackelberg game (leader–follower game) framework. The optimal solutions for both sides under different types of budget constraints are analyzed. Simulation examples are provided to illustrate the main results.