Information flows are intrinsic properties of an multi-stage manufacturing systems (MMS). In computer security, a basic information flow tracking technique is dynamic taint analysis (DTA). DTA tracks taint propagation from one data variable (e.g., a buffer holding a HTTP request) to another. Taint propagation paths are typically determined by data flows and implicit flows in a computer program. And the union of all the taint propagation paths forms a taint graph. It is clear that taints graphs could significantly enhance intrusion diagnosis. However, the existing DTA techniques cannot be directly used in an MMS, and a main reason is as follows: Without manufacturing-specific taint propagation rules, DTA cannot be implemented. In this work, we conduct a case study which (a) extends the existing DTA method with manufacturing-specific taint propagation rules, and (b) applies the extended method to perform preliminary intrusion diagnosis with a small-scale test-bed.
@article{arxiv.2109.12774,
title = {Cyber-Physical Taint Analysis in Multi-stage Manufacturing Systems (MMS): A Case Study},
author = {Tao Liu and Bowen Yang and Qi Li and Jin Ye and Wenzhan Song and Peng Liu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.12774},
year = {2021}
}