New algorithm shuts down attacks on military robots

Australian researchers have designed a novel algorithm capable of intercepting and shutting down man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks on unmanned military robots in a matter of seconds.

AI experts from Charles Sturt University and the University of South Australia trained a robot’s operating system to identify the signatures of an MitM eavesdropping cyber attack, which involves interrupting an existing data transfer between an unmanned robot and a control centre.

The algorithm has been tested on a replica of a US army combat ground vehicle and shown to be 99% successful at preventing a malicious attack, with false positive rates of less than 2%.

UniSA autonomous systems expert Professor Anthony Finn said this success rate is superior to other recognition techniques used around the world to detect cyber attacks. He said the robot operating system used in autonomous robots like US army vehicles are extremely susceptible to data breaches and electronic hijacking.

“The advent of Industry 4, marked by the evolution in robotics, automation and the Internet of Things, has demanded that robots work collaboratively where sensors, actuators and controllers need to communicate and exchange information with one another via cloud services. The downside of this is that it makes them highly vulnerable to cyber attacks,” he said.

“The good news, however, is that the speed of computing doubles every couple of years, and it is now possible to develop and implement sophisticated AI algorithms to guard systems against digital attacks.”

Finn and fellow researcher Dr Fendy Santoso next plan to test their intrusion detection algorithm on different robotic platforms, such as drones.

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