NEST: Network-Energy-Stress Threat Against Thermal Energy Equipment

Thermal energy equipment, a critical component for transferring and utilizing thermal energy derived from primary energy sources, is indispensable in Industrial Control Systems (ICSs). With the deep integration of information technologies, ICSs are threatened by new cyber-physical security risks, where the physical systems could be influenced by attacks from the cyber network. While cyber-physical security risks in ICSs have been well studied in various domains, such as power systems and smart structural systems, little attention has been paid to the cyber-physical security of thermal energy equipment. In this paper, we propose a novel cyber-physical threat against thermal energy equipment, namely the Network-Energy-Stress Threat (NEST), which reveals attacks from the cyber network could induce an inhomogeneous distribution of thermal energy, thus causing remarkable thermal stress that can induce physical damage to the thermal energy equipment. From the attacker’s perspective, we propose an inherent vulnerability-based algorithm to explore the threat space of potential attack strategies and find an approximately optimal attack strategy utilizing the nonlinear NEST model. Then, we propose a cyber-physical defense method to detect anomalous states stemming from the NEST. Experimental results on a simulated Solar Power Tower (SPT) plant have validated the existence of the NEST against thermal energy equipment and demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and the proposed detector. Note to Practitioners— This paper is motivated by the practical threat of physical damage to Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) caused by cyber-physical attacks. While cyber-physical security risks in ICSs have been well studied across plenty of types of ICS and physical infrastructures, there is a lack of a framework to describe cyber-physical threats to thermal energy equipment. To address this issue, we propose the Network-Energy-Stress Threat (NEST) to reveal how cyber attacks can induce abnormal thermal stress, causing physical damage to thermal energy equipment—a critical component widely deployed in ICSs. The existence of the NEST has been demonstrated through experimental results on a simulated Solar Power Tower (SPT) plant.