Using Frequency measurements for data consistency assessment related to malicious data injection in distribution related ICT systems

The new active distribution grids ask for ICT systems to support the grid observability and control. However, Information and Communication systems are prone to cyber attacks and high effort is focused on detection of cyber attacks which may bring malicious data injection in the control systems. The paper shows how frequency, as a common parameter in the synchronous power systems, can be used to assess data consistency over the grid, thus being able to detect eventual intrusions through cyber-attacks, by analyzing in real-time its evolution at different levels in the grid (on-line) or by making off-line assessments on recorded data. Selected examples and their interpretations are given in the paper, to show the effectiveness of the method. Moreover, detection of grid faults has been also shown to be possible by using the same tools based on frequency measurement over the grid.