Research of smart grid cyber security risks

In the EU-project “DREAM”, a heterarchical control strategy for future distribution grids was developed. In this strategy, the grid is subdivided into “cells” and each cell is controlled by a “DSO-agent”. The grid operator’s control room is connected to a “substation DSO-agent”, which in turn is connected to the individual cells.

This multi-layer control strategy could potentially be attacked by hackers. Therefore, the control strategy was tested in OpSim with simulated hacker-attacks. 4 scenarios were simulated:      

• Blackout-case in the grid simulation.
• 3 DoS-attacks: the entire communication is interrupted, communication to cell-agent is interrupted or counterfeit measurement data is being sent to the agents.

E. Drayer, J. Hegemann, S. Gehler, M. Braun.
Resilient Distribution Grids - Cyber Threat Scenarios and Test Environment.