Open Access

ARTICLE

Autonomous Cyber-Physical System for Anomaly Detection and Attack Prevention Using Transformer-Based Attention Generative Adversarial Residual Network

Abrar M. Alajlan^1,*, Marwah M. Almasri²

1 Self-Development Skills Department, Common First Year Deanship, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11362, Saudi Arabia
2 College of Computing and Informatics, Saudi Electronic University, Riyadh, 93499, Saudi Arabia

* Corresponding Author: Abrar M. Alajlan. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2025, 85(3), 5237-5262. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2025.066736

Received 16 April 2025; Accepted 14 August 2025; Issue published 23 October 2025

Abstract

Cyber-Physical Systems integrated with information technologies introduce vulnerabilities that extend beyond traditional cyber threats. Attackers can non-invasively manipulate sensors and spoof controllers, which in turn increases the autonomy of the system. Even though the focus on protecting against sensor attacks increases, there is still uncertainty about the optimal timing for attack detection. Existing systems often struggle to manage the trade-off between latency and false alarm rate, leading to inefficiencies in real-time anomaly detection. This paper presents a framework designed to monitor, predict, and control dynamic systems with a particular emphasis on detecting and adapting to changes, including anomalies such as “drift” and “attack”. The proposed algorithm integrates a Transformer-based Attention Generative Adversarial Residual model, which combines the strengths of generative adversarial networks, residual networks, and attention algorithms. The system operates in two phases: offline and online. During the offline phase, the proposed model is trained to learn complex patterns, enabling robust anomaly detection. The online phase applies a trained model, where the drift adapter adjusts the model to handle data changes, and the attack detector identifies deviations by comparing predicted and actual values. Based on the output of the attack detector, the controller makes decisions then the actuator executes suitable actions. Finally, the experimental findings show that the proposed model balances detection accuracy of 99.25%, precision of 98.84%, sensitivity of 99.10%, specificity of 98.81%, and an F1-score of 98.96%, thus provides an effective solution for dynamic and safety-critical environments.

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