Sparse Attack Construction and State Estimation in the Smart Grid: Centralized and Distributed Models

Abstract

New methods that exploit sparse structures arising in smart grid networks are proposed for the state estimation problem when data injection attacks are present. First, construction strategies for unobservable sparse data injection attacks on power grids are proposed for an attacker with access to all network information and nodes. Specifically, novel formulations for the optimization problem that provide a flexible design of the trade-off between performance and false alarm are proposed. In addition, the centralized case is extended to a distributed framework for both the estimation and attack problems. Different distributed scenarios are proposed depending on assumptions that lead to the spreading of the resources, network nodes and players. Consequently, for each of the presented frameworks a corresponding optimization problem is introduced jointly with an algorithm to solve it. The validity of the presented procedures in real settings is studied through extensive simulations in the IEEE test systems.Index Terms-Smart grid security, false data injection, distributed optimization, sparse models, attack detection.

Recovering missing data via matrix completion in electricity distribution systems

“…The implementation of advanced control strategies demands access to accurate and low latency data describing the state of the grid, which increases the performance requirements for the sensing infrastructure. The state estimation problem when data injection attacks are present is studied in [2], [3], [4], and [5]. Sensor failures, errors during data collection, unreliable transmission, and storage issues are just some of the causes of the operator having an incomplete set of observations of the state variables describing the grid.…”

On Data Integrity Attacks Against Real-Time Pricing in Energy-Based Cyber-Physical Systems

“…Once the adversary launches data integrity attacks, one representative type of cyber attacks against smart meters, and manipulates parameters related to decision-making processes, false decisions will be made and the welfare of participants in the system will be reduced. There have been a number of research efforts on data integrity attacks in the energybased cyber-physical system [28]- [48]. For example, data integrity attacks on state estimation [28]- [32], real-time LMP (Locational Marginal Prices) [33], [34], [36]- [40] and the multistep electricity price model [35] have been studied.…”

Cyber Risk Assessment of Transmission Lines in Smart Grids

“…Ozay et al [2] proposed a distributed attacking strategy for false data injection attacks. The sparse optimization technique was used to construct the corresponding sparse attacking vector.…”

“…Note that there is a strong condition in [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] that the full network information of a power network is assumed to known to an attacker. This strong condition would make the proposed attacking model impractical.…”