Operator Suspicion and Decision Responses to Cyber-Attacks on Unmanned Ground Vehicle Systems:

Cyber-attacks against cyber-physical systems (CPS), such as unmanned vehicles, are emergent threats with potentially catastrophic impacts, and this issue has drawn considerable interest by military agencies. Abundant body of research has attempted to address the physical security aspects of CPS; however, research addressing the human dimensions of cyber-attack detection and responses from an operator and operational perspective is sparse. This research has provided a novel probe into the human factors affecting operator resilience in responding to cyber-attacks, which are situations characterized by uncertainty and malicious intent. The variability of individual operators makes it improbable to grasp the full range of factors contributing to operator performance; however, the application of Suspicion Theory as proposed by Bobko et al. (2013), provides a starting point to aid in understanding operator performance in situations involving malicious intent (e.g. a cyber-attack). According to the theory, malic...