Impact of Brute Force Based False Data Injection Attack on Distribution System State Estimation

Abstract

Power utilities rely on SCADA systems for automation to improve the operational reliability of distribution systems. Further, the integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with SCADA has improved the efficacy of distribution system. However, the penetration of these technologies has made the distribution system more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The cyber-attacks such as false data injection (FDI), data spoofing, and denial of service (DoS) attack have been investigated in the transmission system. However, false data injection (FDI) attacks on distribution system are less investigated in the literature. FDI attacks are crucial, and it is identified that deceptive attacks have an adverse impact on the system operation. In this work, Brute Force based FDI attacks are investigated as a deceptive form of cyber-attack on a distribution system. Impact of Brute Force based FDI attacks on Distribution System State Estimator (DSSE) is studied to understand the performance of state estimator in case of a FDI based cyber-attacks. The brute force based FDI attack is simulated on static state estimator (weighted least square) and dynamic state estimator (Kalman based estimation) considering 15 node distribution system as the test network.