False data injection to conceal load-altering attacks via electric vehicles

Abstract

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology offers promising solutions for enhancing power systems stability and controllability by utilizing electric vehicles as flexible energy resources. Despite these advantages, the V2G technology can also expose the power system’s security and normal operation to new threats. The risks of a novel attack strategy were investigated where a false data injection attack was used to conceal a load-altering attack through electric vehicle charging stations. Scenarios where an attacker has different levels of knowledge about the system were considered. In the ideal scenario for an attacker where full system knowledge is available, the attack involved a Jacobian method to identify the most vulnerable buses. Chi-squared and maximum normalized residual tests were used to assess the attack success. It was shown that successful attacks causing voltage and frequency instabilities are possible even when the attacker has partial knowledge of the system.