Design and Detection of Covert Man-in-the-Middle Cyberattacks on Water Treatment Plants
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866908632767004672 |
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| author | Mattos, Victor Schmidt, João Henrique Bhaya, Amit de Sá, Alan Oliveira Menasché, Daniel Sadoc Srivastava, Gaurav |
| author_facet | Mattos, Victor Schmidt, João Henrique Bhaya, Amit de Sá, Alan Oliveira Menasché, Daniel Sadoc Srivastava, Gaurav |
| contents | Cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructures, such as water treatment facilities, represent significant threats to public health, safety, and the environment. This paper introduces a systematic approach for modeling and assessing covert man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks that leverage system identification techniques to inform the attack design. We focus on the attacker's ability to deploy a covert controller, and we evaluate countermeasures based on the Process-Aware Stealthy Attack Detection (PASAD) anomaly detection method. Using a second-order linear time-invariant with time delay model, representative of water treatment dynamics, we design and simulate stealthy attacks. Our results highlight how factors such as system noise and inaccuracies in the attacker's plant model influence the attack's stealthiness, underscoring the need for more robust detection strategies in industrial control environments. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_03971 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Design and Detection of Covert Man-in-the-Middle Cyberattacks on Water Treatment Plants Mattos, Victor Schmidt, João Henrique Bhaya, Amit de Sá, Alan Oliveira Menasché, Daniel Sadoc Srivastava, Gaurav Cryptography and Security Systems and Control Cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructures, such as water treatment facilities, represent significant threats to public health, safety, and the environment. This paper introduces a systematic approach for modeling and assessing covert man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks that leverage system identification techniques to inform the attack design. We focus on the attacker's ability to deploy a covert controller, and we evaluate countermeasures based on the Process-Aware Stealthy Attack Detection (PASAD) anomaly detection method. Using a second-order linear time-invariant with time delay model, representative of water treatment dynamics, we design and simulate stealthy attacks. Our results highlight how factors such as system noise and inaccuracies in the attacker's plant model influence the attack's stealthiness, underscoring the need for more robust detection strategies in industrial control environments. |
| title | Design and Detection of Covert Man-in-the-Middle Cyberattacks on Water Treatment Plants |
| topic | Cryptography and Security Systems and Control |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03971 |