Demystifying Cyber-Physical Malware

The traditional notion of malware is too narrow, and the prevalent characterizations (virus, worm, trojan horse, spyware etc.) are neither precise nor comprehensive enough to characterize cyber-physical malware (CPM). Detecting sophisticated CPM is like searching for a needle in the haystack without knowing what the needle looks like. This technical briefing congregates interdisciplinary knowledge to describe the fundamentals of CPM, the mathematical foundation for analyzing and verifying CPM, the current state-of-the-art, the challenges, and directions for future research. Employing real-world examples, we shall illustrate the challenges of analyzing and verifying CPM.