Financially Motivated FDI on SCED in Real-Time Electricity Markets: Attacks and Mitigation

Abstract

Given the strong cyber-physical coupling that exists in power systems today and of the future, false data injection (FDI) attacks have been shown to be feasible in tampering measurement devices by exploiting cyber vulnerabilities to mislead state estimation and related applications. For example, a corrupt generator owner, motivated by financial gain, may manipulate meter readings associated with short-term load forecasts and subsequently misguide the decisions of security constrained economic dispatch (SCED) in ex-ante real-time markets. In this paper, we analyze the feasibility of financially motivated FDI attacks in bi-level programming settings where multi-solution uncertainty of SCED is considered. To deter such attacks, a robust incentive-reduction strategy is proposed that can prevent financially motivated FDI attacks for all the possible load distributions and solutions of SCED requiring a minimal number of protected meters. Simulations for the IEEE 14-bus and IEEE 30-bus test systems demonstrate attack feasibility and performance of the proposed mitigation strategy for SCED in real-time markets.