Reliability analysis of cyber-physical systems considering cyber-attacks

A general framework is proposed for cyber-physical system reliability modeling and evaluation considering some typical cyber attacks. The impacts of attacks from cyber space on physical space are analyzed, including the denial of service attack and deception attack. The cyber intrusion is modeled by a semi-Markov process, which decides the occurrence probability of cyber-attacks. The occurrence probability is related to the attacker level and defender level, therefore the cyber intrusion process is more practical and applicable for most attack situations. A case study on industrial heat exchanger system is provided to quantify the influences of cyber attacks on system performance and reliability. Some important conclusions are also drawn, which will be useful in designing resilient cyber-physical systems.