Integrating security into real-time cyber-physical systems
type: CreativeWork
description: Cyber-physical systems (CPS) such as automobiles, power plants, avionics systems, unmanned vehicles, medical devices, manufacturing and home automation systems have distinct cyber and physical components that must work cohesively with each other to ensure correct operation. Many cyber-physical applications have “real-time” constraints, i.e., they must function correctly within predetermined time scales. A failure to protect these systems could result in significant harm to humans, the system or even the environment. While traditionally such systems were isolated from external accesses and used proprietary components and protocols, modern CPS use off-the-shelf components and are increasingly interconnected, often via networks such as the Internet. As a result, they are exposed to additional attack surfaces and have become increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks. Enhancing security for real-time CPS, however, is not an easy task due to limited resource availability (e.g., processing power, memory, storage, energy) and stringent timing/safety requirements. Security monitoring techniques for cyber-physical platforms (a) must execute with existing real-time tasks, (b) operate without impacting the timing and safety constraints of the control logic and (c) have to be designed and executed in a way that an adversary cannot easily evade it. The objective of my research is to increase security posture of embedded real-time CPS by integrating monitoring/detection techniques that defeat cyber attacks without violating timing/safety constraints of existing tasks. My dissertation work explores the real-time security domain and shows that by employing a combination of multiple scheduling/analysis techniques and interactions between hardware/software-based security extensions, it becomes feasible to integrate security monitoring mechanisms in real-time CPS without compromising timing/safety requirements of existing tasks. In this research, I (a) develop techniques to raise the re…
abstract: Cyber-physical systems (CPS) such as automobiles, power plants, avionics systems, unmanned vehicles, medical devices, manufacturing and home automation systems have distinct cyber and physical components that must work cohesively with each other to ensure correct operation. Many cyber-physical applications have “real-time” constraints, i.e., they must function correctly within predetermined time scales. A failure to protect these systems could result in significant harm to humans, the system or even the environment. While traditionally such systems were isolated from external accesses and used proprietary components and protocols, modern CPS use off-the-shelf components and are increasingly interconnected, often via networks such as the Internet. As a result, they are exposed to additional attack surfaces and have become increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks. Enhancing security for real-time CPS, however, is not an easy task due to limited resource availability (e.g., processing power, memory, storage, energy) and stringent timing/safety requirements. Security monitoring techniques for cyber-physical platforms (a) must execute with existing real-time tasks, (b) operate without impacting the timing and safety constraints of the control logic and (c) have to be designed and executed in a way that an adversary cannot easily evade it. The objective of my research is to increase security posture of embedded real-time CPS by integrating monitoring/detection techniques that defeat cyber attacks without violating timing/safety constraints of existing tasks. My dissertation work explores the real-time security domain and shows that by employing a combination of multiple scheduling/analysis techniques and interactions between hardware/software-based security extensions, it becomes feasible to integrate security monitoring mechanisms in real-time CPS without compromising timing/safety requirements of existing tasks. In this research, I (a) develop techniques to raise the re…
author: Hasan, Monowar
language: en
keywords: Real-Time Systems, Cyber-Physical Systems, Security
date published: 2021-03-05T21:38:14Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:50Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109407