In this chapter, we looked into the problem of malicious FDIAs in power grid state estimation. We proposed stealth attack construction strategies for different scenarios and also introduced the countermeasures. The results demonstrate that the proposed random attack construction algorithm can generate extremely sparse attack vectors with high probabilities with consideration of the noise in measurements. Traditional successful attacks tend to compromise a number of measurements, which exceeds a certain value. The proposed algorithm can construct undetectable attacks which only compromise a much smaller numbers of measurements than this known value. The targeted attack construction method is evaluated considering different percentages of state variables are targeted and different number of measurements are protected. The results show that attack vectors in this scenario cannot be extremely sparse, unless only an extremely small number of state variables are targeted. It also demonstrates that targeted stealth attack vectors do not exist when a number of measurements are protected from being modified. An efficient protection scheme is proposed in this chapter to find an effective measurement protection subset to defend from the stealth attacks. The simulation results have demonstrated that the proposed algorithm can find protection subsets with the same size as that from brute-force method in nearly all cases. More importantly, the algorithm is quick, and thus feasible in practice when the power system is large. Additionally, a detection algorithm is introduced to detect the stealth attacks as well as other false data. This algorithm considers the case in which only partial measurements are collected in the presence of noise. The performance is demonstrated via the simulation results based on IEEE test power systems.

Chapter Contents:

• 11.1 Power system state estimation and FDIAs
• 11.1.1 State estimation
• 11.1.2 Malicious FDIAs
• 11.2 Stealth attack strategies
• 11.2.1 Random attacks
• 11.2.1.1 Sparse attack construction algorithm
• 11.2.2 Numerical results
• 11.2.3 Target attacks
• 11.2.4 Numerical results
• 11.3 Defense mechanisms
• 11.3.1 Strategic protection
• 11.3.2 Numerical results
• 11.3.3 Robust detection
• 11.3.4 Numerical results
• 11.4 Conclusions
• Bibliography

Inspec keywords: power system state estimation; power system measurement; power system security; smart power grids; power system protection

Other keywords: IEEE test power systems; measurement protection subset; targeted attack construction; detection algorithm; partial measurements; attack mechanism; smart grid state estimation; cyber security; defense mechanism; malicious FDIA problem; stealth attack construction; random attack construction; brute-force method; power grid state estimation; extremely sparse attack vectors

Subjects: Power system management, operation and economics; Power system protection; Power system measurement and metering