Mitigating Event Confidentiality Violations in Smart Grids: An Information Flow Security-Based Approach

Abstract

Modern smart grids, by and large, merge physical interconnections and cyber controllers. Invariably, this tight coupling results in cyber commands manifesting in the physical layer as observable changes, leading to possible disclosure of sensitive system settings. Thus, cyber event confidentiality of the smart grid is violated. Attacks on confidentiality can ultimately lead to integrity and availability attacks; with adequate knowledge of the system topology, internal settings, and how the physical layer responds to cyber commands, a malicious adversary gains knowledge to attack the system. This work shows how to develop self-obfuscating systems based on information flow security properties that can mitigate event confidentiality violations in smart grids.