Bad Data Injection Attack Propagation in Cyber-Physical Power Delivery Systems

The coupling between information, communication and computing elements with the physical components of power systems introduces new cyber and cyber-physical security concerns. Addressing these concerns requires novel methods that complement the legacy and existing security solutions. Attacks such as bad data injection can cause disruptions that transcend the cyber realm and affect the physical world. This paper introduces a graph-based attack propagation model that simulates a bad data injection attack and executes a heuristic defense strategy using power system state estimation. We use the state estimator to identify maliciously injected data and adopt physical security metrics to decide attack mitigation actions. Visualization from analysis performed by this propagation simulation can guide the operator at the control center to take appropriate action to minimize disruption of the physical power system operation due to bad data injection attacks.