Electric power system security: the case for an integrated cyber-physical risk management framework

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Karangelos, Efthymios, Wehenkel, Louis
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Karangelos, Efthymios
Wehenkel, Louis
author_facet Karangelos, Efthymios
Wehenkel, Louis
contents This paper concerns the security of the electric power transmission grid facing the threat of malicious cyber-physical attackers. We posit that there is no such thing as perfectly effective cyber-security. Rather, any cyber-security measure comes with the possibility that a highly skilled attacker could (eventually find a way to) bypass it. On these grounds, we formulate a tri-level decision making problem seeking to co-optimize preventive physical and cyber-security measures under uncertainty on the ability of an exogenous cyber-physical attacker to overcome the latter. Preventive physical security measures refer to the \emph{ex-ante} procurement of reserve capacity, which translates into ramping restrictions in real-time. Cyber-security measures refer to updating the firewall rules so as to impede an intruder from taking over the cyber infrastructure of the grid and disconnecting power generators and transmission branches. We adopt standard assumptions to formalize the inner optimization problems corresponding to the cyber-physical attacker and power grid operator and focus on uncertainty management at the uppermost level of the problem. Our findings establish that physical- and cyber-security measures are non-exchangeable complements in keeping the power grid operation secure.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_20287
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Electric power system security: the case for an integrated cyber-physical risk management framework
Karangelos, Efthymios
Wehenkel, Louis
Systems and Control
This paper concerns the security of the electric power transmission grid facing the threat of malicious cyber-physical attackers. We posit that there is no such thing as perfectly effective cyber-security. Rather, any cyber-security measure comes with the possibility that a highly skilled attacker could (eventually find a way to) bypass it. On these grounds, we formulate a tri-level decision making problem seeking to co-optimize preventive physical and cyber-security measures under uncertainty on the ability of an exogenous cyber-physical attacker to overcome the latter. Preventive physical security measures refer to the \emph{ex-ante} procurement of reserve capacity, which translates into ramping restrictions in real-time. Cyber-security measures refer to updating the firewall rules so as to impede an intruder from taking over the cyber infrastructure of the grid and disconnecting power generators and transmission branches. We adopt standard assumptions to formalize the inner optimization problems corresponding to the cyber-physical attacker and power grid operator and focus on uncertainty management at the uppermost level of the problem. Our findings establish that physical- and cyber-security measures are non-exchangeable complements in keeping the power grid operation secure.
title Electric power system security: the case for an integrated cyber-physical risk management framework
topic Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.20287