Design of Real-Time False Data Injection Attack on Electricity Market With Limited Sensor Accessibility

Abstract

The integration of information and communication technology tools in the smart grid network has made the electricity market operation vulnerable to cyberattacks. The attacks aim at compromising the integrity of market operations by causing profit/loss to a targeted utility/consumer. Injection of false data on sensor measurement allows for maliciously controlling the locational marginal price (LMP) through the state variable. In this work, we propose a false data injection attack (FDIA) on the market operation with the objectives of maximally deviating the LMP and minimizing the attack budget. Considering the conflict between the two objectives, a tradeoff approach based on multiobjective optimization has been proposed. The solution derived postconvergence of the optimization problem provides a set of solutions (Pareto-front), each pertaining to bus locations on which FDIA can be carried out. The solution allows an intruder to design an FDIA based on the priority assigned between market disruption and attack budget. For a given budget for launching an attack, the Pareto-front provides the optimal FDIA configuration for which the deviation in LMP is maximized. To validate the proposed design scheme in practical settings, a real-time testbed is developed involving the cosimulation of the power and communication networks.