A prominent recent example of such multi-vector attack was the Stuxnet attack that targeted nuclear centrifuges at the Iranian uranium enrichment plant. A multi-vector attack, exploiting a combined set of vulnerabilities from each of these individual components, can have damaging effects. The complex nature of CPS makes securing such systems go beyond securing each of these components in isolation. Ironically, it also makes such systems very attractive targets for ever increasing, both in number and complexity, cyber attacks. Increasing dependence on CPS and their potential effects on the physical world, demands them to be inevitably secure, robust, reliable, and trustworthy.

These systems are rapidly finding their way into various aspects of the contemporary society such as transportation, healthcare, and critical infrastructure. This expansion has led to the emergence of closed-loop systems involving strong integration and coordination of physical and cyber (computational and communication) components, often referred to as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The exponential growth of information and communication technologies over the last decade has given rise to their expansion in real-world applications involving physical processes.