Integrated fault propagation model based vulnerability assessment of the electrical cyber-physical system under cyber attacks

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the vulnerability of electrical cyber-physical systems (CPSs) through fault propagation under cyber attacks. First, we propose a fault propagation model mainly considering the impact of interruptions on some nodes of the cyber network on the electrical physical systems. Secondly, two graphs, i.e. propagation graph and attack graph are proposed to reveal the physical fault propagation mechanisms and analyze the attack intensity of combinations of different communication nodes, respectively. Thirdly, a set of traditional vulnerable indices based on the propagation and attack graphs are employed to identify both the critical physical branches and communication nodes in the CPS. Finally, comparative analyses with and without considering the CPS on both IEEE 118- and 300- bus systems show that the fault propagation among are more sophisticated and the wrong decisions that the control center makes causes the higher vulnerability of the electrical network due to the interruption of the transmission information in the cyber system under cyber attacks.