Load oscillating smart meter attack

This paper investigates the potential impacts of load oscillating attacks in a microgrid to the stability of the main power grid. The adversary is assumed to be able to control switches within compromised smart meters and thus is able to dynamically connect or disconnect the corresponding loads within the microgrid. Using the commercial PSS/e time-domain simulator with the IEEE Reliability Test System (RTS-96), we demonstrate the impacts of attacks cycling the total load of the microgrid. Cycling attacks with different load oscillation frequencies and magnitudes are considered. We found that for certain oscillation frequencies, oscillating 30 percent of the total microgrid load can significantly harm the main grid stability.