Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading Outages
Modern cyber-physical power systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Given that cyber and physical networks are coupled tightly, attacks in the cyber layer can penetrate the physical layer, causing the outage of transmission lines and other physical equipment, thus changing the topology of the grid....
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2020-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9131768/ |
| _version_ | 1818655879384268800 |
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| author | Zhimei Zhang Shaowei Huang Feng Liu Shengwei Mei |
| author_facet | Zhimei Zhang Shaowei Huang Feng Liu Shengwei Mei |
| author_sort | Zhimei Zhang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Modern cyber-physical power systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Given that cyber and physical networks are coupled tightly, attacks in the cyber layer can penetrate the physical layer, causing the outage of transmission lines and other physical equipment, thus changing the topology of the grid. In some extreme scenarios, the topological change will disrupt the emergency response of the grid, eventually causing cascading outages along with a blackout. Therefore, as the defender, the operator of a cyber-physical power system should identify critical cyber attacks. In this paper, patterns of sequential cyber topological attacks are analyzed. Firstly, a coordinated attack process is established, including mechanism and probability analysis considering the different timescales. Secondly, the concept of patterns is defined as minimal attack sequences aimed at causing blackouts. Furthermore, the representativeness of patterns is illustrated, which can significantly reduce the storage of risky attack sequences. Thirdly, to address the problem that the identification of patterns is computationally intensive, a search strategy that selects the next attack target dynamically and increases the search depth gradually is proposed to avoid unnecessary search trials. Lastly, tests are carried out on the IEEE 39-node system using the AC power flow model, which validates the representativeness of patterns and the performance of the proposed search strategy. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T03:16:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9bb8e418e47249e5887043028751cb36 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T03:16:42Z |
| publishDate | 2020-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-9bb8e418e47249e5887043028751cb362022-12-21T22:05:38ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362020-01-01813425713426710.1109/ACCESS.2020.30065559131768Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading OutagesZhimei Zhang0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0774-3109Shaowei Huang1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0679-5927Feng Liu2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2279-2558Shengwei Mei3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2757-5977Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, ChinaDepartment of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, ChinaModern cyber-physical power systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks. Given that cyber and physical networks are coupled tightly, attacks in the cyber layer can penetrate the physical layer, causing the outage of transmission lines and other physical equipment, thus changing the topology of the grid. In some extreme scenarios, the topological change will disrupt the emergency response of the grid, eventually causing cascading outages along with a blackout. Therefore, as the defender, the operator of a cyber-physical power system should identify critical cyber attacks. In this paper, patterns of sequential cyber topological attacks are analyzed. Firstly, a coordinated attack process is established, including mechanism and probability analysis considering the different timescales. Secondly, the concept of patterns is defined as minimal attack sequences aimed at causing blackouts. Furthermore, the representativeness of patterns is illustrated, which can significantly reduce the storage of risky attack sequences. Thirdly, to address the problem that the identification of patterns is computationally intensive, a search strategy that selects the next attack target dynamically and increases the search depth gradually is proposed to avoid unnecessary search trials. Lastly, tests are carried out on the IEEE 39-node system using the AC power flow model, which validates the representativeness of patterns and the performance of the proposed search strategy.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9131768/Cascading outagescyber attackpatterntopological attacktree search |
| spellingShingle | Zhimei Zhang Shaowei Huang Feng Liu Shengwei Mei Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading Outages IEEE Access Cascading outages cyber attack pattern topological attack tree search |
| title | Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading Outages |
| title_full | Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading Outages |
| title_fullStr | Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading Outages |
| title_full_unstemmed | Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading Outages |
| title_short | Pattern Analysis of Topological Attacks in Cyber-Physical Power Systems Considering Cascading Outages |
| title_sort | pattern analysis of topological attacks in cyber physical power systems considering cascading outages |
| topic | Cascading outages cyber attack pattern topological attack tree search |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9131768/ |
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