A game-theoretic approach for power systems defense against dynamic cyber-attacks

Saqib Hasan, Abhishek Dubey, Gabor Karsai, Xenofon Koutsoukos

International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems 2020

PDF DOI

Why This Matters

Power systems face emerging threats from dynamic cyber-attacks that can target multiple components at different times to maximize damage while remaining within resource constraints. Static defense approaches are insufficient for protecting against strategically sequenced attacks. This work is innovative because it applies game-theoretic analysis to power system cybersecurity, enabling defenders to anticipate worst-case attack scenarios and identify optimal protection strategies that minimize overall system damage.

What We Did

This paper presents a game-theoretic approach for power system defense against dynamic cyber-attacks where attackers can target multiple substations at different times. The work develops both static and dynamic attack models and provides efficient algorithms for identifying worst-case attacks and optimal defense strategies. The methodology uses game theory to model the interaction between attackers and defenders, enabling strategic identification of critical substations to protect.

Key Results

The game-theoretic analysis identifies worst-case dynamic attacks and optimal defense strategies for IEEE test systems. Results show that dynamic attacks can cause greater damage than static attacks through strategic timing and component selection. The work provides algorithms for defenders to identify critical substations to protect based on attack budget constraints, enabling more strategic allocation of limited security resources.

Full Abstract

Cite This Paper

@article{Hasan2020,
  author = {Hasan, Saqib and Dubey, Abhishek and Karsai, Gabor and Koutsoukos, Xenofon},
  journal = {International Journal of Electrical Power \& Energy Systems},
  title = {A game-theoretic approach for power systems defense against dynamic cyber-attacks},
  year = {2020},
  issn = {0142-0615},
  volume = {115},
  abstract = {Technological advancements in today{\textquoteright}s electrical grids give rise to new vulnerabilities and increase the potential attack surface for cyber-attacks that can severely affect the resilience of the grid. Cyber-attacks are increasing both in number as well as sophistication and these attacks can be strategically organized in chronological order (dynamic attacks), where they can be instantiated at different time instants. The chronological order of attacks enables us to uncover those attack combinations that can cause severe system damage but this concept remained unexplored due to the lack of dynamic attack models. Motivated by the idea, we consider a game-theoretic approach to design a new attacker-defender model for power systems. Here, the attacker can strategically identify the chronological order in which the critical substations and their protection assemblies can be attacked in order to maximize the overall system damage. However, the defender can intelligently identify the critical substations to protect such that the system damage can be minimized. We apply the developed algorithms to the IEEE-39 and 57 bus systems with finite attacker/defender budgets. Our results show the effectiveness of these models in improving the system resilience under dynamic attacks.},
  contribution = {colab},
  doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2019.105432},
  file = {:Hasan2020-A_Game_Theoretic_Approach_for_Power_Systems_Defense_against_Dynamic_Cyber_Attacks.pdf:PDF},
  keywords = {power systems, cybersecurity, game theory, dynamic attacks, resilience, critical infrastructure protection},
  project = {cps-reliability},
  tag = {platform,power},
  url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142061519302807}
}
Quick Info
Year 2020
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.i...
Keywords
power systems cybersecurity game theory dynamic attacks resilience critical infrastructure protection
Research Areas
energy CPS planning
Search Tags

game, theoretic, approach, power, systems, defense, against, dynamic, cyber, attacks, power systems, cybersecurity, game theory, dynamic attacks, resilience, critical infrastructure protection, energy, CPS, planning, 2020, Hasan, Dubey, Karsai, Koutsoukos