False data injection attacks against state estimation in electric power grids

TLDR

Power grids rely on state estimation to monitor operations, and although bad‑measurement detection methods exist, they are presumed to counteract malicious data injections. This study exposes a vulnerability in current bad‑measurement detection algorithms by introducing false data injection attacks against state estimation. The attacks assume an attacker can access system configuration and alter measurements at protected substations, enabling undetected arbitrary state errors, and they are analyzed under constrained‑meter and resource‑limited scenarios, including generalized attacks that exploit tolerated measurement errors. Simulations on IEEE test systems confirm that attackers can systematically construct effective attack vectors, and the study discusses the practical feasibility and real‑world constraints limiting such attacks.

Abstract

A power grid is a complex system connecting electric power generators to consumers through power transmission and distribution networks across a large geographical area. System monitoring is necessary to ensure the reliable operation of power grids, and state estimation is used in system monitoring to best estimate the power grid state through analysis of meter measurements and power system models. Various techniques have been developed to detect and identify bad measurements, including interacting bad measurements introduced by arbitrary, nonrandom causes. At first glance, it seems that these techniques can also defeat malicious measurements injected by attackers. In this article, we expose an unknown vulnerability of existing bad measurement detection algorithms by presenting and analyzing a new class of attacks, called false data injection attacks , against state estimation in electric power grids. Under the assumption that the attacker can access the current power system configuration information and manipulate the measurements of meters at physically protected locations such as substations, such attacks can introduce arbitrary errors into certain state variables without being detected by existing algorithms. Moreover, we look at two scenarios, where the attacker is either constrained to specific meters or limited in the resources required to compromise meters. We show that the attacker can systematically and efficiently construct attack vectors in both scenarios to change the results of state estimation in arbitrary ways. We also extend these attacks to generalized false data injection attacks , which can further increase the impact by exploiting measurement errors typically tolerated in state estimation. We demonstrate the success of these attacks through simulation using IEEE test systems, and also discuss the practicality of these attacks and the real-world constraints that limit their effectiveness.