Can You See Me On Performance of Wireless Fingerprinting in a Cyber Physical System

In this article we have presented experimental results to evaluate the effectiveness of wireless fingerprinting based on Received Signal Strength Indicator(RSSI). Experiments are conducted on a real world water treatment testbed. Results indicate unique vantage point for Cyber Physical System(CPS) settings as the wireless environment is comparatively static hence the significance of signal strength based fingerprinting scheme in such settings is justified. An attacker is assumed to be a rogue AP which connects with all the client nodes (Programmable Logic Controllers) and can listen and tamper traffic from those controllers. Using signal strength as a fingerprint, it’s deviation from the normal pattern can be detected, revealing the presence of a rogue AP. We give insights into distributed policy where individual PLCs independently try to raise alarms on attackers presence.