Exploration of For-Purpose Decentralized Algorithmic Cyber Attacks in EV Charging Control

Distributed and decentralized multi-agent optimization (DMAO) algorithms enable the control of large-scale grid-edge resources, such as electric vehicles (EVs), to provide power grid services. Despite its great scalability, DMAO is fundamentally prone to cyber attacks as it is highly dependent on frequent peer-to-peer communications. Existing cyber-security research in this regard mainly focuses on broad-spectrum attacks aiming at jeopardizing the entire control system while losing the possibility of achieving specific attacking purposes. This paper, for the first time, explores novel for-purpose algorithmic attacks that are launched by participating agents and interface with DMAO to achieve self-interest attack purposes. A decentralized EV charging control problem is formulated as an illustrative use case. Theoretical for-purpose attack vectors with and without the stealthy feature are devised. Simulations on EV charging control show the practicability of the proposed algorithmic for-purpose attacks and the impacts of such attacks on distribution networks.