A coordinated cyberattack targeting load centers and renewable distributed energy resources for undervoltage/overvoltage in the most vulnerable regions of a modern distribution system

Abstract

An integral step for system operators in protecting modern distribution systems and smart cities against future cyberattacks is to primarily scrutinize complex cyberattack models targeting smart grids from the viewpoint of attackers. This paper proposes a cyberattack framework to result in simultaneous undervoltage and overvoltage in a smart distribution system equipped with renewable energy resources. In the upper level of the framework, attackers separately solve an optimization problem to result in optimal and suboptimal candidates of false data injection attack vectors leading to possible scenarios of under/overvoltage in the system. In the lower level, the attackers solve the second optimization problem collaboratively to identify the attacks targeting the most vulnerable regions of the system to undervoltage and overvoltage at the optimal time. In case the optimal time of attackers is not the same, a trade-off platform is designed within the framework such that they can compromise and identify a reasonable time for such a simultaneous cyberattack.