Improving the safety of distributed cyber-physical systems against false data injection attack by establishing interconnections

The fourth industrial revolution is elevating the overall flexibility and controllability of the production processes, leading to better consistency in quality and improved feasibility of personalization. However, an evident downside is observed from the boosting system openness because the security and safety protocols are not ready for the potential impacts and threats. In this work, an in-depth analysis about the novel challenges is firstly presented. Then, the mechanism of false data injection attack on the industrial cyber-physical systems is studied. The target is to reveal the condition when the existing fault diagnosis systems fail to detect the false data injection attack on the distributed and networked systems. A theorem is proposed to support the discussions. It is elaborated that establishing interconnections between the subsystems will help prevent undetectable attacks, and thus improving the systems’ safety.