Protecting Industry 4.0 Systems Against the Malicious Effects of Cyber-Physical Attacks

Industry 4.0 refers a new industrial paradigm based on Cyber-Physical Systems principles. In these new, complex and highly interdependent systems, the traditional definition of "cyber-attack" is not enough to represent all the situations may occur. Furthermore, traditional security policies and defense strategies are not designed to be effective in scenarios mixing cyber and physical elements. In this context, this work presents a new idea about what cyber-physical attacks are, and a technological solution to protect and compensate the malicious effects of these attacks in Industry 4.0 systems. The proposal is based on a specific description language (CP-ADL) for cyber-physical attacks, and a mathematical framework allowing a decision making about the most adequate defense strategy. Finally, and experimental validation is provided, showing with our proposal the impact of cyber-physical attacks is highly reduced.