Reflexive reactions are exploited by the attacker to induce
desired behaviors. Examples include the creation of attacks that appear to
come from a friend so as to cause automated response systems to shut down
friendly communication, induction of select flaws into the power grid so as
to cause SCADA systems to reroute power to the financial advantage of select
suppliers, and the use of forged or interrupted signals so as to cause
friendly fire incidents.
Complexity: The concept of reflexive control is
easily understood, and for simplistic automated response systems, finding
exploitations appears to be quite simple, but there has been little
mathematical work in this area (other than general work in control theory)
and it is premature to assess a complexity level at this time. In general,
it appears that this problem may be related to the problems in producing and
analyzing cascade failures in that causing desired reflexive reaction with a
reasonable degree of control may be quite complex.
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