False Data Injection on State Estimation in Power Systems—Attacks, Impacts, and Defense: A Survey

TLDR

Accurate state estimation is critical for power system stability, and bad data detection is used to eliminate erroneous measurements, but recent work has focused on protecting against attacks that can bypass BDD. This survey reviews constructing FDI attacks, their market impacts, and defenses, and outlines future research directions and challenges. The authors examine attack construction and market impacts from the adversary’s view, then discuss operator countermeasures. FDI attacks can bypass BDD and bias state estimates.

Abstract

The accurately estimated state is of great importance for maintaining a stable running condition of power systems. To maintain the accuracy of the estimated state, bad data detection (BDD) is utilized by power systems to get rid of erroneous measurements due to meter failures or outside attacks. However, false data injection (FDI) attacks, as recently revealed, can circumvent BDD and insert any bias into the value of the estimated state. Continuous works on constructing and/or protecting power systems from such attacks have been done in recent years. This survey comprehensively overviews three major aspects: constructing FDI attacks; impacts of FDI attacks on electricity market; and defending against FDI attacks. Specifically, we first explore the problem of constructing FDI attacks, and further show their associated impacts on electricity market operations, from the adversary's point of view. Then, from the perspective of the system operator, we present countermeasures against FDI attacks. We also outline the future research directions and potential challenges based on the above overview, in the context of FDI attacks, impacts, and defense.