A Cyber Security Study of a SCADA Energy Management System: Stealthy Deception Attacks on the State Estimator*

Teixeira, André; Dán, György; Sandberg, Henrik; Johansson, Karl Henrik

doi:10.3182/20110828-6-it-1002.02210

Cited by 82 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Such attacks are often called stealth attacks. The observation was made using a linearized model of the SE, but it was shown later on a SCADA/EMS testbed that stealth attacks are also possible under a non-linear model [4]. Since then the security of standalone SE has received much attention [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The observation was made using a linearized model of the SE, but it was shown later on a SCADA/EMS testbed that stealth attacks are also possible under a non-linear model [4]. Since then the security of standalone SE has received much attention [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. Various schemes were proposed to mitigate stealth attacks, through individual data protection [5], through changes to the BDD algorithm [6], and through the protection of the SCADA infrastructure [7], [8].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The importance of SE has made its security a major concern, and therefore the vulnerability of standalone SEs to so called stealth attacks has been widely studied [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. Stealth attacks are false data injection attacks O.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Security of Fully Distributed Power System State Estimation: Detection and Mitigation of Data Integrity Attacks

Vuković

Dán

2014

IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun.

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Abstract-State estimation plays an essential role in the monitoring and supervision of power systems. In today's power systems state estimation is typically done in a centralized or in a hierarchical way, but as power systems will be increasingly interconnected in the future smart grid, distributed state estimation will become an important alternative to centralized and hierarchical solutions. As the future smart grid may rely on distributed state estimation, it is essential to understand the potential vulnerabilities that distributed state estimation may have. In this paper, we show that an attacker that compromises the communication infrastructure of a single control center in an interconnected power system can successfully perform a denial of service attack against state-of-the-art distributed state estimation, and consequently it can blind the system operators of every region. As a solution to mitigate such a denial of service attack, we propose a fully distributed algorithm for attack detection. Furthermore, we propose a fully distributed algorithm that identifies the most likely attack location based on the individual regions' beliefs about the attack location, isolates the identified region, and then reruns the distributed state estimation. We validate the proposed algorithms on the IEEE 118 bus benchmark power system.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Security of Fully Distributed Power System State Estimation: Detection and Mitigation of Data Integrity Attacks

Vuković

Dán

2014

IEEE J. Select. Areas Commun.

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“…Secondly, if the attacker has perfect power grid topology, then s/he can construct matrix 12 4 as follows: 16 …”

Section: Fig 1 Example 5-bus Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protection Strategies Against False Data Injection Attacks with Uncertain Information on Electric Power Grids

Bae¹,

Lee²,

Kim³

et al. 2017

Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology

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-False data injection attacks have recently been introduced as one of important issues related to cyber-attacks on electric power grids. These attacks aim to compromise the readings of multiple power meters in order to mislead the operation and control centers. Recent studies have shown that if a malicious attacker has complete knowledge of the power grid topology and branch admittances, s/he can adjust the false data injection attack such that the attack remains undetected and successfully passes the bad data detection tests that are used in power system state estimation. In this paper, we investigate that a practical false data injection attack is essentially a cyber-attack with uncertain information due to the attackers lack of knowledge with respect to the power grid parameters because the attacker has limited physical access to electric facilities and limited resources to compromise meters. We mathematically formulated a method of identifying the most vulnerable locations to false data injection attack. Furthermore, we suggest minimum topology changes or phasor measurement units (PMUs) installation in the given power grids for mitigating such attacks and indicate a new security metrics that can compare different power grid topologies. The proposed metrics for performance is verified in standard IEEE 30-bus system. We show that the robustness of grids can be improved dramatically with minimum topology changes and low cost.

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“…In particular, many recent papers have explored various aspects of data integrity attacks on SCADA/EMS systems that impact the key function of state estimation. These include computation and characterization of the attacks, and various detection and mitigation strategies based on secure PMU placement [7], [8], [9], [10], [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metrics for assessment of smart grid data integrity attacks

Giani

Bent

Hinrichs

et al. 2012

2012 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting

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Abstract-There is an emerging consensus that the nation's electricity grid is vulnerable to cyber attacks. This vulnerability arises from the increasing reliance on using remote measurements, transmitting them over legacy data networks to system operators who make critical decisions based on available data.Data integrity attacks are a class of cyber attacks that involve a compromise of information that is processed by the grid operator. This information can include meter readings of injected power at remote generators, power flows on transmission lines, and relay states. These data integrity attacks have consequences only when the system operator responds to compromised data by redispatching generation under normal or contingency protocols. These consequences include (a) financial losses from sub-optimal economic dispatch to service loads, (b) robustness/resiliency losses from placing the grid at operating points that are at greater risk from contingencies, and (c) systemic losses resulting from cascading failures induced by poor operational choices. This paper is focussed on understanding the connections between grid operational procedures and cyber attacks. We first offer an example to illustrate how data integrity attacks can cause economic and physical damage by misleading operators into taking inappropriate decisions. We then focus on unobservable data integrity attacks involving power meter data. These are coordinated attacks where the compromised data is consistent with the physics of power flow, and is therefore passed by any bad data detection algorithm. We develop metrics to assess the economic impact of these attacks under operator re-dispatch decisions using optimal power flow methods. These metrics can be used to prioritize the adoption of appropriate countermeasures including PMU placement, encryption, hardware upgrades, and advanced detection algorithms.

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A Cyber Security Study of a SCADA Energy Management System: Stealthy Deception Attacks on the State Estimator*

Cited by 82 publications

References 9 publications

Security of Fully Distributed Power System State Estimation: Detection and Mitigation of Data Integrity Attacks

Security of Fully Distributed Power System State Estimation: Detection and Mitigation of Data Integrity Attacks

Protection Strategies Against False Data Injection Attacks with Uncertain Information on Electric Power Grids

Metrics for assessment of smart grid data integrity attacks

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