# A Formal Approach to Physics-Based Attacks in Cyber-Physical Systems (Extended Version)

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.04572 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.04572/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 12 Feb 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A Survey on Privacy Attacks Against Digital Twin Systems in AI-Robotics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.18812/) (2024)
- [Test and Evaluation Framework for Multi-Agent Systems of Autonomous Intelligent Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.10430/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We apply formal methods to lay and streamline theoretical foundations to reason about Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) and physics-based attacks, i.e., attacks targeting physical devices. We focus on a formal treatment of both integrity and denial of service attacks to sensors and actuators of CPSs, and on the timing aspects of these attacks. Our contributions are fourfold. (1)~We define a hybrid process calculus to model both CPSs and physics-based attacks. (2)~We formalise a threat model that specifies MITM attacks that can manipulate sensor readings or control commands in order to drive a CPS into an undesired state, and we provide the means to assess attack tolerance/vulnerability with respect to a given attack. (3)~We formalise how to estimate the impact of a successful attack on a CPS and investigate possible quantifications of the success chances of an attack. (4)~We illustrate our definitions and results by formalising a non-trivial running example in Uppaal SMC, the statistical extension of the Uppaal model checker; we use Uppaal SMC as an automatic tool for carrying out a static security analysis of our running example in isolation and when exposed to three different physics-based attacks with different impacts.