Co-simulation for Cyber Security Analysis: Data Attacks against Energy Management System

TL;DR

This paper develops a co-simulation platform coupling power system and communication network simulators to evaluate the vulnerability of energy management systems to data attacks, providing a practical tool for security assessment.

Contribution

It extends an analytic framework for modeling data attacks as optimization problems and creates a co-simulation platform integrating power, communication, and EMS simulations.

Findings

EMS is vulnerable to data attacks demonstrated through simulations.

Co-simulation helps in assessing security vulnerabilities effectively.

The platform enables realistic testing of attack scenarios.

Abstract

It is challenging to assess the vulnerability of a cyber-physical power system to data attacks from an integral perspective. In order to support vulnerability assessment except analytic analysis, suitable platform for security tests needs to be developed. In this paper we analyze the cyber security of energy management system (EMS) against data attacks. First we extend our analytic framework that characterizes data attacks as optimization problems with the objectives specified as security metrics and constraints corresponding to the communication network properties. Second, we build a platform in the form of co-simulation - coupling the power system simulator DIgSILENT PowerFactory with communication network simulator OMNeT++, and Matlab for EMS applications (state estimation, optimal power flow). Then the framework is used to conduct attack simulations on the co-simulation based platform for a power grid test case. The results indicate how vulnerable of EMS to data attacks and how co-simulation can help assess vulnerability.