A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Cyber Attack-Mitigation in Centralized Feeder Automation System

Abstract

The intelligent electronic devices widely deployed across the distribution network are inevitably making the feeder automation (FA) system more vulnerable to cyber-attacks, which would lead to disastrous socio-economic impacts. This paper proposes a three-stage game-theoretic framework that the defender allocates limited security resources to minimize the economic impacts on FA system while the attacker deploys limited attack resources to maximize the corresponding impacts. Meanwhile, the probability of successful attack is calculated based on the Bayesian attack graph, and a fault-tolerant location technique for centralized FA system is elaborately considered during analysis. The proposed game-theoretic framework is converted into a two-level zero-sum game model and solved by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) combined with a generalized reduced gradient algorithm. Finally, the proposed model is validated on distribution network for RBTS bus 2.