Integrated simulation to analyze the impact of cyber-attacks on the power grid

Abstract

With the development of the smart grid technology, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a significant role in the smart grid. ICT enables to realize the smart grid, but also brings cyber vulnerabilities. It is important to analyze the impact of possible cyber-attacks on the power grid. In this paper, a real-time, cyber-physical co-simulation testbed with hardware-in-the-loop capability is discussed. Real-time Digital Simulator (RTDS), Synchrophasor devices, DeterLab, and a widearea monitoring application with closed-loop control are utilized in the developed testbed. Two different real life cyber-attacks, including TCP SYN flood attack, and man-in-the-middle attack, are simulated on an IEEE standard power system test case to analyze the the impact of these cyber-attacks on the power grid.

Enhancing Smart Grid Resilience: An Educational Approach to Smart Grid Cybersecurity Skill Gap Mitigation

“…The study [34] outlines the utilization of a testbed composed of commercial equipment, software, hardware, and simulation/emulation, through which students can learn about communications and conduct comprehensive security analyses. A testbed using a real-time digital simulator to simulate a power system is developed in [35]. The communications subsystem is simulated through DeterLab, which allows for the creation, planning, monitoring, and analysis of cybersecurity aspects of the system.…”

Enhancing Smart Grid Cybersecurity: A Comprehensive Analysis of Attacks, Defenses, and Innovative AI-Blockchain Solutions

“…The authentication of messages. [35] Jamming When an attacker sends a signal to a device, they may change the signal's frequency or amplitude. No other authorized devices will be able to make contact with the victim.…”

Flexible hardware‐in‐the‐loop testbed for cyber physical power system simulation

“…Especially, for the communication network simulation, the HIL testbed provides even more benefits in communication modelling, modelling capability, modelling granularity, and modelling reliability. For example, in [9], a HIL testbed of DIgSILENT and smart city testbed is used to simulate the impact of cyber-attack on the GOOSE network in the substation; in [10], a HIL testbed of real-time digital simulator (RTDS) and OPNET is built to simulate the impact of cyber-attack on the Modbus/transmission control protocol; in [11], a HIL testbed for wide area measurement system is built to create dataset and analyse cyber-attack; in [12], a survey on testbed for smart grid CPS reviews and evaluates some platforms of the testbeds; in [13], a non-real-time HIL testbed is proposed, in which software and simulation tools replace the expensive real-time component, and synchronisation component is provided to ensure the accurate behaviour during the simulation; in [14,15], the testbed is built for cyber security evaluation; in [16], a real-time HIL co-simulation testbed using RTDS, phasor measurement unit (PMU), phasor data concentrator (PDU), satellite-synchronised clock, DeterLab, and RT-VSMAC has been built to analyse the cyber-attack, and the impacts of cyber-attack of denial-of-service and man-in-the-middle (MITM) on power grid are simulated. In general, the communication simulator, in the HIL CPPS testbed, consists of the real network and the virtual network, and by mapping the real nodes into a virtual network, the real network and the virtual network can be combined together [17].…”