Random delay attack and its applications on load frequency control of power systems

Publication Type

Conference Proceeding Article

Publication Date

1-2019

Abstract

In a closed-loop CPS (Cyber-Physical Systems), a core component such as power plant is usually regulated by a controller with the help of actuators and sensors interconnected through a communication network. This paper investigates the impact of maliciously induced delays on control signals in a CPS. In particular, it presents a simple and yet powerful attack, referred to as random delay attack. In this attack, an adversary induces random delays on a sequence of control signals such that the state of the core component quickly becomes divergent. Moreover, the attack is also effective even if delay compensation techniques are employed. As the attacker in the proposed attack merely induces delays on the control signals, say by momentarily jamming the network link, cryptographic-based protections are not able to defeat the attack. To demonstrate its effectiveness, we simulate the random delay attack on the LFC (Load Frequency Control) system which is one of the most critical components in a power plant. We show that the attack on one area can be propagated to other interconnected areas. In addition, this paper proposes countermeasures on the random delay attack.

Keywords

Cyber-physical system security, Load frequency control, Random delay attack

Discipline

Information Security

Research Areas

Cybersecurity

Publication

2019 IEEE Conference on Dependable and Secure Computing 3rd DSC: Hangzhou, China, November 18-21: Proceedings

ISBN

9781728123196

Identifier

10.1109/DSC47296.2019.8937611

Publisher

IEEE

City or Country

Piscataway, NJ

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1109/DSC47296.2019.8937611

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS