Title:  Threat Propagation Modeling in Cyber-Physical Systems

Committee: 

Dr. Mooney, Advisor     

Dr. Grijalva, Co-Advisor

Dr. Molzahn, Chair

Dr. Lerner

Abstract:

The objective of the proposed research is to model attack propagation in cyber-physical systems. We use the electricity grid as the main exemplar for our work. We utilize three models: (a) a model based on Markov principles, (b) a game-theoretic probabilistic learning attacker, dynamic defender (PLADD) model, and (c) the hybrid attack model, which combines both Markov and PLADD model. The research to be completed includes the following: (1) A case study inspired by the Ukraine power grid attack in 2015, (2) mathematical analysis of parallel PLADD games, and (3) physically unclonable function (PUF) enabled secure update and PUF re-enrollment.