Agent Based Testbed Design for Cyber Vulnerability Assessment in Smart-Grids

Smart grid employs Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and network connectivity to optimize efficiency and deliver new functionalities. This evolution is associated with an increased risk for cybersecurity threats that may hamper smart grid operations. Power utility providers need tools for assessing risk of prevailing cyberthreats over ICT infrastructures. The need for frameworks to guide the development of these tools is essential to define and reveal vulnerability analysis indicators. We propose a data-driven approach for designing testbeds to allow the simulation of cyberattacks in order to evaluate the vulnerability and the impact of cyber threat attacks. The proposed framework uses data reported from multiple smart grid components at different smart grid architecture layers, including physical, control, and cyber layers. The multi-agent based framework proposed in this paper would analyze the conglomeration of these data reports to assert malicious attacks.ELVIRA (http://www.his.se/en/Research/informatics/Distributed-Real-Time-Systems/Infrastructure-resilience/