Greenbench: A benchmark for observing power grid vulnerability under data-centric threats

Abstract

Smart grid is a cyber-physical system which integrates communication networks into traditional power grid. This integration, however, makes the power grid susceptible to cyber attacks. One of the most distinguished challenges in studying the aftermath of cyber attacks in smart grid lies in <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">data-centric</i> threats. Even though such attacks are critical to the information network, they will result in much more Domino-like impact than they behave in cyber world. This is because for an information-centric network, distorted or delayed information undermines services and applications. But in power grid, these data-centric attacks may result in instable power systems, and further detrimental impact of power supplies. In this paper, we present Greenbench, a benchmark that is designed to evaluate real-time power grid dynamics in response to data-centric attacks. The simulation results provide several counter-intuitive suggestions to both smart grid security research and deployment.