Zero-Parameter-Information FDI Attacks Against Power System State Estimation

Abstract

False data injection (FDI) attack is one class of the threatening cyber attacks against power systems. It has been widely recognized that, with the assumption that the attacker is capable of obtaining complete or incomplete information of the system topology and line parameters, the highly synthesized FDI attacks can evade being detected from bad data detection in state estimation. However, line parameters cannot be obtained or inferred easily in practice, because they may be changed or disturbed. In this paper, we find that it is possible for the attacker to execute stealthy FDI attacks against DC state estimation with zero knowledge of line parameters. We term them as zero-parameter-information FDI attacks. Only the topology information about the cut line is required for designing such attack. We prove that, the attacker can arbitrarily modify the state variable of a one-degree bus, which is connected to the outside only by a single cut line; and modify the state variables of all buses, with a same arbitrary bias, in a one-degree super-bus, which is a group of buses that is connected to the outside only by a single cut line. Moreover, we extend these results to a bus or a super-bus which is connected to the outside only by multiple cut lines. Finally, we illustrate and validate our findings using some test power systems.