Projects:2020s2-7331 Take-over and retrieve control: attack and defence in networked multi-agent systems

Abstract here

Introduction

A cyber-physical system (CPS) is a computer system in which a mechanism is controlled or monitored by computer-based algorithms. CPS is widely used in many industries, including smart grid, autonomous automobile systems, medical monitoring, industrial control systems, robotics systems, and automatic pilot avionics. With the rapid development of CPS, cyber security becomes the major concern in the application of CPS technology. The project aims to explore the relationship between physical layer and cyber layer within a CPS, find the system vulnerabilities that may be used by cyber-attackers, and modify the system to prevent potential cyber-attack. To achieve the objective, a multi-agent system (MAS) with cyber defence and control retrieve capabilities will be developed using CPS technology. Various types of cyber-attacks will be designed and developed to test on the MAS and ensure its robustness. Each member of the project team is assigned one of the four objectives as his/her major focus, which will be discussed in the following section.

Project Team

Project Students

• Moyang Feng – a1726464
• Shuqi Li – a1700965
• Liuxin Shen – a1710063
• Zhiang Cheng – a1707604

Supervisors

• Professor Peng Shi
• Professor Cheng-Chew Lim

Advisors

• Xin Yuan
• Yuan Sun
• Zhi Lian
• Yang Fei

Motivations

• Networked MAS is an active research topic among CPSs
• Existence of cyber-security problems in CPSs
• Unpredictable cyber-attacks affect the performance of CPSs

Project Aim

• Explore cyber-defence and control-retrieve techniques within a networked multi-agent system under various cyber-attacks

Objectives

• Design and implement a Multi-Agent System under MATLAB and V-REP environment
• Design and simulate various cyber-attacks on the proposed MAS
• Design and implement a prediction and prevention system for cyber-defence
• Design control-retrieve techniques on the hacked MAS

Background

Agent

• An independent and autonomous software entity.

Multi-agent System (MAS)​

• A group of interacting intelligent agents[1]​.
• Designed to complete complex tasks [1].

Cyber-physical System (CPS)

• An integration of computation, networking, and physical processes [2].
• Widely used in many industries (smart grid, automobile, etc.).
• Networked Multi-agent System is a form of CPS.

Cyber Attack

• An Unpredictable malicious activity that attempts to collect, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy information system resources or the information itself [3].

Cyber Security in CPS

• Techniques and measures taken to prevent and protect the system from attacks [4].
• Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Authenticity [4].

References

[1] F. Alkhateeb, E. A. Maghayreh and S. Aljawarneh, "A Multi Agent-Based System for Securing University Campus: Design and Architecture," 2010 International Conference on Intelligent Systems, Modelling and Simulation, Liverpool, 2010, pp. 75-79, doi: 10.1109/ISMS.2010.25.​

[2] E. Lee, "Cyber Physical Systems: Design Challenges", 2008 11th IEEE International Symposium on Object and Component-Oriented Real-Time Distributed Computing (ISORC), 2008. doi: 10.1109/isorc.2008.25.​

[3] "Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) Glossary", Rmf.org, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://rmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CNSSI-4009.pdf. [Accessed: 17- Sep- 2020].​

[4] C. K. Keerthi, M. A. Jabbar and B. Seetharamulu, "Cyber Physical Systems(CPS):Security Issues, Challenges and Solutions," 2017 IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research (ICCIC), Coimbatore, 2017, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ICCIC.2017.8524312.