An Epidemic Theoretic Model against Byzantine Attacks for Wireless Cognitive Sensor Networks in Smart Grids

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) technologies are being widely deployed at tremendous rate in smart grids, which has provided an opportunity for low-cost limited-capacity wireless radio devices to coexist. However, a large amount of wireless communication equipments operating in smart grids result in spectrum scarcity in the unlicensed band, leading to the confluence of cognitive radio into WSN, which we refer to as Wireless Cognitive Sensor Network (WCSN). In this paper, we study the Byzantine attacks to WCSN in smart grids, where intruders send false local spectrum sensing results and power consumption information resulting in incorrect spectrum allocation and power dispatching decisions by control centers. Based on epidemic theory, we model and analyze the information spreading process in Byzantine attacks and identify key factors determining potential epidemic outbreaks in smart grids. The analytical results will provide deep insights in designing potential defense schemes against Byzantine attacks. In conclusion, through simulation experiments, we validate our models and perform investigations on the system dynamics.