We address the problem of cyber security of process control systems. We consider the context of industrial control systems in which an attacked sensor node sends false measurements of the system state, resulting in damage to the physical plant. We employ a “dynamic watermarking” technique to secure process control systems against malicious attacks. First, our simulation results demonstrate that this method successfully detects a malicious activity in time to prevent overflows in coupled water tanks.

Wireless sensor-actuator networks (WSANs) are designed to collect and disseminate information using a physically distributed collection of wireless nodes and multi-hop protocols. WSANs are gaining rapid adoption in industrial automation and manufacturing applications due to their low deployment cost, robustness, and configuration flexibility. While the early success of industrial WSANs has been focused on monitoring applications, there are significant advantages, and also challenges, when WSANs are used in feedback control applications.