RIVER: An eBPF-based Runtime Verification Platform for Cyber-Physical Systems

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Runtime verification has proven to be an effective approach for quality assurance of cyber-physical systems (CPSs). However, due to some technical difficulties, existing tools usually do not support analyses that require runtime inspection of the CPS internal states and do not allow to perform a prompt intervention. To fill this gap, we propose RIVER, a client- server platform that supports a wide range of novel runtime analyses, including injection of adversarial attacks and runtime enforcement. At the core of our approach there is the adoption of eBPF, a widely-used technology in security research that allows privileged programs to read and write the internal state of the CPS model. We showcase the functionalities of RIVER over two widely-adopted CPS models: an adaptive cruise control system and an abstract fuel control system. Tool available at: https://github.com/dariofad/river Screencast available at: https://youtu.be/g-3m0E2nNgM

@inproceedings{river,
    author = {Dario Facchinetti and Matthew Rossi and Zhanya Zhang and Stefano Paraboschi and Paolo Arcaini},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 19th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)},
    title = {RIVER: An eBPF-based Runtime Verification Platform for Cyber-Physical Systems},
    day = {18-22},
    month = {May},
    year = {2026},
    location = {Daejeon, South Korea},
}