Electrical power grids are vulnerable to cyber attacks, as seen in Ukraine in 2015, 2016, and 2022. These cyber attacks are classified as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) with potential disastrous consequences such as a total blackout. However, state-of-the-art intrusion detection systems are inadequate for APT detection owing to their stealthy nature and long-lasting persistence. Furthermore, they are ineffective as they focus on individual anomaly instances and overlook the correlation between attack instances. Therefore, this research proposes a novel method for spatio-temporal APT detection and correlation for cyber-physical power systems. It provides online situational awareness for power system operators to pinpoint system-wide anomaly locations in near real-time and preemptively mitigate APTs at an early stage before causing adverse impacts. We propose an Enhanced Graph Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory (EGC-LSTM) by using sequential and neural network filters to improve APT detection, correlation, and prediction. Control center and substation communication traffic is used to determine cyber anomalies using semi-supervised deep packet inspection and software-defined networking. Power grid circuit breaker status is used to determine physical anomalies. Cyber-physical anomalies are correlated in cyber-physical system integration matrix and EGC-LSTM. The EGC-LSTM outperforms existing state-of-the-art spatio-temporal deep learning models, achieving the lowest mean square error.@en

Power grid digitalization introduces new vulnerabilities and cyber security threats. The impact of cyber attacks on power system stability is a topic of growing concern, which is yet to be comprehensively analyzed. Traditional power system stability analysis is based on the impact of non-malicious small, and large physical disturbances. However, cyber attacks introduce a new dimension to power system stability, in which malicious cyber actors can selectively target critical systems and applications and cause severe stability issues. Hence, in this work, the traditional disturbances considered in power system stability classification are expanded from physical to cyber-physical disturbances caused by cyber attacks. Based on a thorough state-of-the-art, an analysis of how cyber attacks can translate into physical disturbances affecting the traditional power system stability categories is performed. The system stability analysis is expanded by mapping the power system stability categories with the defined cyber-physical attack types. The findings of this work showcase the importance of cyber security for power system stability.@en

Power systems are undergoing rapid digitalization. This introduces new vulnerabilities and cyber threats in future Cyber-Physical Power Systems (CPPS). Some of the most notable incidents include the cyber attacks on the power grid in Ukraine in 2015, 2016, and 2022, which employed Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) strategies that took several months to reach their objectives and caused power outages. This highlights the urgent need for an in-depth analysis of APTs on CPPS. However, existing frameworks for analyzing cyber attacks, i.e., MITRE ATT&CK ICS and Cyber Kill Chain, have limitations in comprehensively analyzing APTs in CPPS environments. To address this gap, we propose a novel Advanced Cyber-Physical Power System (ACPPS) kill chain framework. The ACPPS kill chain identifies the APT characteristics that are unique to power systems. It defines and examines the cyber-physical APT stages spanning from the initial phases of infiltration to cascading failures and a power system blackout. The proposed ACPPS kill chain is validated with real-world APT attacks on the power grid in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016, and cyber-physical simulations.

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High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) technology is one of the key enablers of the energy transition, especially for offshore wind energy systems. While extensive research on cyber security of High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) systems has been conducted, limited research exists on cyber security aspects of HVDC systems. These systems exhibit unique attributes, in comparison to HVAC systems, such as longer transmission line distances and increased volume of data samples for wide-area monitoring, control, and protection applications. These factors lead to a higher vulnerability of HVDC systems to cyber attacks. Existing state-of-the-art HVDC surveys, however, are primarily focused on HVDC physical components and exclude cyber security elements. Therefore, this paper presents the first detailed survey on the cyber security of HVDC Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). We present a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art HVDC systems, with a special focus on cyber threats and vulnerabilities, defense and mitigation strategies, and testbeds. Based on the review and analysis, insights and recommendations on future research directions to address the research gaps in this field of study are provided. Future research on cyber security for HVDC systems should prioritize the integration of cyber and physical system data and focus on early-stage detection to mitigate the potentially severe impacts of cyber attacks on HVDC grids.

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Cyber actors can target the unsecured IEC 61850 protocols in digital substations to open circuit breakers and affect the power system operation. Thus, system operators must detect cyber-physical anomalies and differentiate in real-time between power system faults and cyber attacks on digital substations for effective incident response. In this work, we propose a novel image encoding method for event correlation using cyber-physical time-series data, i.e., Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and Operational Technology (OT) network traffic. More specifically, we propose a dynamic variation of the Gramian Angular Field method, which generates image streams capturing in real-time the spatial-temporal features in PMU measurements and IEC 61850 GOOSE traffic throughput. The proposed method for cyber-physical event correlation uses an image fusion technique. The method is tested using the benchmark IEEE 9-bus system. It successfully distinguishes between three-phase faults and GOOSE cyber attacks, demonstrating its usefulness for power system cyber security analytics.

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Cascading effects in the power grid involve an uncontrolled, successive failure of elements. The root cause of such failures is the combined occurrence of multiple, statistically rare events that may result in a blackout. With increasing digitalisation, power systems are vulnerable to emergent cyber threats. Furthermore, such threats are not statistically limited and can simultaneously occur at multiple locations. In the absence of real-world attack information, however, it is imperative to investigate if and how cyber attacks can cause power system cascading failures. Hence, in this work we present a fundamental analysis of the connection between the cascading failure mechanism and cyber security. We hypothesise and demonstrate how cyber attacks on power grids may cause cascading failures and a blackout. To do so, we perform a systematic survey of major historic blackouts caused by physical disturbances, and examine the cascading failure mechanism. Subsequently, we identify critical cyber-physical factors that can activate and influence it. We then infer and discuss how cyber attack vectors can enable these factors to cause and accelerate cascading failures. A synthetic case-study and software-based simulation results prove our hypothesis. This analysis enables future research into cyber resilience of power grids.

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Synthetic networks aim at generating realistic projections of real-world networks while concealing the actual system information. This paper proposes a scalable and effective approach based on graph neural networks (GNN) to generate synthetic topologies of Cyber-Physical power Systems (CPS) with realistic network feature distribution. In order to comprehensively capture the characteristics of real CPS networks, we propose a generative model, namely Graph-CPS, based on graph variational autoencoder and graph recurrent neural networks. The method hides the sensitive topological information while maintaining the similar feature distribution of the real networks. We used multiple power and communication networks to prove and assess the effectiveness of the proposed method with experimental results.@en

The cyber attacks in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016 demonstrated the vulnerability of electrical power grids to cyber threats. They highlighted the significance of Operational Technology (OT) communication-based anomaly detection. Many anomaly detection methods are based on real-time traffic monitoring, i.e., Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) that may produce false positives and degrade the OT communication performance. Security Operations Center (SOC) needs intelligent tools to conduct forensic analysis on generated IDS alarms and identify the attack locations. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel, graph-based forensic analysis method for anomaly detection in power systems using OT communication network traffic throughput. It employs a hybrid deep learning model involving Graph Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory and a Convolutional Neural Network. The proposed method aids SOC with continuous OT security monitoring and post-mortem investigations. Results indicate that the proposed method is able to pinpoint the locations of cyber attacks on power grid OT networks with an AUC score above 75%.@en

Electrical power grids are vulnerable to cyber attacks, as seen in Ukraine in 2015 and 2016. However, existing attack detection methods are limited. Most of them are based on power system measurement anomalies that occur when an attack is successfully executed at the later stages of the cyber kill chain. In contrast, the attacks on the Ukrainian power grid show the importance of system-wide, early-stage attack detection through communication-based anomalies. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel method for online cyber attack situational awareness that enhances the power grid resilience. It supports power system operators in the identification and localization of active attack locations in Operational Technology (OT) networks in near real-time. The proposed method employs a hybrid deep learning model of Graph Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory (GC-LSTM) and a deep convolutional network for time series classification-based anomaly detection. It is implemented as a combination of software defined networking, anomaly detection in communication throughput, and a novel attack graph model. Results indicate that the proposed method can identify active attack locations, e.g., within substations, control center, and wide area network, with an accuracy above 96%. Hence, it outperforms existing state-of-the-art deep learning-based time series classification methods.@en

Power system automation and communication standards are spearheading the power system transition towards a smart grid. IEC 61850 is one such standard, which is widely used for substation automation and protection. It enables real-time communication and data exchange between critical substation automation and protection devices within digital substations. However, IEC 61850 is not cyber secure. In this paper, we demonstrate the dangerous implications of not securing IEC 61850 standard. Cyber attacks may exploit the vulnerabilities of the Sampled Values (SV) and Generic Object-Oriented Substation Event (GOOSE) protocols of IEC 61850. The cyber attacks may be realised by injecting spoofed SV and GOOSE data frames into the substation communication network at the bay level. We demonstrate that such cyber attacks may lead to obstruction or tripping of multiple protective relays. Coordinated cyber attacks against the protection system in digital substations may cause generation and line disconnections, triggering cascading failures in the power grid. This may eventually result in a partial or complete blackout. The attack model, impact on system dynamics and cascading failures are veri ed experimentally through a proposed cyber-physical experimental framework that closely resembles real-world conditions within a digital substation, including Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) and protection schemes. It is implemented through Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulations of commercial relays with a Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS).@en