Comprehensive Survey and Taxonomies of False Injection Attacks in Smart Grid: Attack Models, Targets, and Impacts

Smart Grid has rapidly transformed the centrally controlled power system into a massively interconnected cyber-physical system that benefits from the revolutions happening in the communications (e.g. 5G) and the growing proliferation of the Internet of Things devices (such as smart metres and intelligent electronic devices). While the convergence of a significant number of cyber-physical elements has enabled the Smart Grid to be far more efficient and competitive in addressing the growing global energy challenges, it has also introduced a large number of vulnerabilities culminating in violations of data availability, integrity, and confidentiality. Recently, false data injection (FDI) has become one of the most critical cyberattacks, and appears to be a focal point of interest for both research and industry. To this end, this paper presents a comprehensive review in the recent advances of the FDI attacks, with particular emphasis on 1) adversarial models, 2) attack targets, and 3) impacts in the Smart Grid infrastructure. This review paper aims to provide a thorough understanding of the incumbent threats affecting the entire spectrum of the Smart Grid. Related literature are analysed and compared in terms of their theoretical and practical implications to the Smart Grid cybersecurity. In conclusion, a range of technical limitations of existing false data attack research is identified, and a number of future research directions is recommended.Comment: Double-column of 24 pages, prepared based on IEEE Transaction articl

Impact of local energy markets integration in power systems layer: A comprehensive review

In recent years extensive research has been conducted on the development of different models that enable energy trading between prosumers and consumers due to expected high integration of distributed energy resources. Some of the most researched mechanisms include Peer-to-Peer energy trading, Community Self-Consumption and Transactive Energy Models. To ensure the stable and reliable delivery of electricity as such markets and models grow, this paper aims to understand the impact of these models on grid infrastructure, including impacts on the control, operation, and planning of power systems, interaction between multiple market models and impact on transmission network. Here, we present a comprehensive review of existing research on impact of Local Energy Market integration in power systems layer. We detect and classify most common issues and benefits that the power grid can expect from integrating these models. We also present a detailed overview of methods that are used to integrate physical network constraints into the market mechanisms, their advantages, drawbacks, and scaling potential. In addition, we present different methods to calculate and allocate network tariffs and power losses. We find that financial energy transactions do not directly reflect the physical energy flows imposed by the constraints of the installed electrical infrastructure. In the end, we identify a number of different challenges and detect research gaps that need to be addressed in order to integrate Local Energy Market models into existing infrastructure

Protecting the Future Grid: An Electric Vehicle Robust Mitigation Scheme Against Load Altering Attacks on Power Grids

Due to the growing threat of climate change, the worlds governments have been encouraging the adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs). As a result, EV numbers have been growing exponentially which will introduce a large EV charging load into the power grid. On this basis, we present a scheme to utilize EVs as a defense mechanism to mitigate Load-Altering (LA) attacks against the grid. The developed scheme relies on robust control theory and Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs). Our EV-based defense mechanism is formulated as a feedback controller synthesized using H-2 and H-infinity control techniques to eliminate the impact of unknown LA attacks. The controller synthesis considers the grid topology and the uncertainties of the EV connection to the grid. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mitigation scheme, it is tested against three types of LA attacks on the New England 39-bus grid. We test our mitigation scheme against 800 MW static, switching, and dynamic attacks in the presence of multiple sources of uncertainty that can affect the EV load during deployment. The results demonstrate how the grid remains stable under the LA attacks that would otherwise lead to serious instabilities.Comment: Accepted for publication in Applied Energ

Robust and cheating-resilient power auctioning on Resource Constrained Smart Micro-Grids

The principle of Continuous Double Auctioning (CDA) is known to provide an efficient way of matching supply and demand among distributed selfish participants with limited information. However, the literature indicates that the classic CDA algorithms developed for grid-like applications are centralised and insensitive to the processing resources capacity, which poses a hindrance for their application on resource constrained, smart micro-grids (RCSMG). A RCSMG loosely describes a micro-grid with distributed generators and demand controlled by selfish participants with limited information, power storage capacity and low literacy, communicate over an unreliable infrastructure burdened by limited bandwidth and low computational power of devices. In this thesis, we design and evaluate a CDA algorithm for power allocation in a RCSMG. Specifically, we offer the following contributions towards power auctioning on RCSMGs. First, we extend the original CDA scheme to enable decentralised auctioning. We do this by integrating a token-based, mutual-exclusion (MUTEX) distributive primitive, that ensures the CDA operates at a reasonably efficient time and message complexity of O(N) and O(logN) respectively, per critical section invocation (auction market execution). Our CDA algorithm scales better and avoids the single point of failure problem associated with centralised CDAs (which could be used to adversarially provoke a break-down of the grid marketing mechanism). In addition, the decentralised approach in our algorithm can help eliminate privacy and security concerns associated with centralised CDAs. Second, to handle CDA performance issues due to malfunctioning devices on an unreliable network (such as a lossy network), we extend our proposed CDA scheme to ensure robustness to failure. Using node redundancy, we modify the MUTEX protocol supporting our CDA algorithm to handle fail-stop and some Byzantine type faults of sites. This yields a time complexity of O(N), where N is number of cluster-head nodes; and message complexity of O((logN)+W) time, where W is the number of check-pointing messages. These results indicate that it is possible to add fault tolerance to a decentralised CDA, which guarantees continued participation in the auction while retaining reasonable performance overheads. In addition, we propose a decentralised consumption scheduling scheme that complements the auctioning scheme in guaranteeing successful power allocation within the RCSMG. Third, since grid participants are self-interested we must consider the issue of power theft that is provoked when participants cheat. We propose threat models centred on cheating attacks aimed at foiling the extended CDA scheme. More specifically, we focus on the Victim Strategy Downgrade; Collusion by Dynamic Strategy Change, Profiling with Market Prediction; and Strategy Manipulation cheating attacks, which are carried out by internal adversaries (auction participants). Internal adversaries are participants who want to get more benefits but have no interest in provoking a breakdown of the grid. However, their behaviour is dangerous because it could result in a breakdown of the grid. Fourth, to mitigate these cheating attacks, we propose an exception handling (EH) scheme, where sentinel agents use allocative efficiency and message overheads to detect and mitigate cheating forms. Sentinel agents are tasked to monitor trading agents to detect cheating and reprimand the misbehaving participant. Overall, message complexity expected in light demand is O(nLogN). The detection and resolution algorithm is expected to run in linear time complexity O(M). Overall, the main aim of our study is achieved by designing a resilient and cheating-free CDA algorithm that is scalable and performs well on resource constrained micro-grids. With the growing popularity of the CDA and its resource allocation applications, specifically to low resourced micro-grids, this thesis highlights further avenues for future research. First, we intend to extend the decentralised CDA algorithm to allow for participants’ mobile phones to connect (reconnect) at different shared smart meters. Such mobility should guarantee the desired CDA properties, the reliability and adequate security. Secondly, we seek to develop a simulation of the decentralised CDA based on the formal proofs presented in this thesis. Such a simulation platform can be used for future studies that involve decentralised CDAs. Third, we seek to find an optimal and efficient way in which the decentralised CDA and the scheduling algorithm can be integrated and deployed in a low resourced, smart micro-grid. Such an integration is important for system developers interested in exploiting the benefits of the two schemes while maintaining system efficiency. Forth, we aim to improve on the cheating detection and mitigation mechanism by developing an intrusion tolerance protocol. Such a scheme will allow continued auctioning in the presence of cheating attacks while incurring low performance overheads for applicability in a RCSMG

A Novel Distributed and Stealthy Attack on Active Distribution Networks and a Mitigation Strategy

Rapid advances in smart devices tremendously facilitate our day-to-day lives. However, these can be exploited remotely via existing cyber vulnerabilities to cause disruption at the physical infrastructure level. In this paper, we discover a novel distributed and stealthy attack that uses malicious actuation of a large number of small-scale loads residing within a distribution network (DN). This attack is capable of cumulatively violating the underlying operational system limits, leading to widespread and prolonged disruptions. A key element of this attack is the efficient use of attack resources, planned via Stackelberg games. To mitigate this type of an attack, we propose a countermeasure strategy which adaptively suppresses adverse effects of the attack when detected in a timely manner. The effectiveness of the proposed mitigation strategy is demonstrated via theoretical convergence studies, practical evaluations, and comparisons with the state-of-the-art strategies using realistic load flow and DN infrastructure models