A Game-Theoretic Approach to Cross-Layer Security Decision-Making in Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems

Current security measures in industrial cyber-physical systems (ICPS) lack the active decision capability to defend against highly-organized cyber-attacks. In this paper, a security decision-making approach based on stochastic game model is proposed to characterize the interaction between attackers and defenders in ICPSs and generate optimal defense strategies to minimize system losses. The major distinction of this approach is that it presents a practical way to build a cross-layer security game model for ICPSs by means of quantitative vulnerability analysis and time-based unified payoff quantification. A case study on a hardware-in-the-loop simulation testbed is carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.