Cyber-physical security of an electric microgrid

Cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are physical systems that are controlled or monitored by computer-based systems. CPSs are a combination of computation, networking, and physical processes. As CPSs are a combination of various diverse components, they are vulnerable to several security threats. Moreover, there are many different security domains (not just high/low, nor necessarily hierarchical). This paper utilizes previously developed multiple security domain nondeducibility (MSDND) to uncover potential integrity vulnerabilities in an electric microgrid. Invariants are manually generated using the insights obtained through MSDND analysis and use linear regression to automate the generation of invariants. The vulnerabilities are then mitigated, to the extent possible, by adding executable invariants on system operation. Implementation on the Electric Power and Intelligent Control (EPIC) testbed at the Singapore University of Technology and Design is reported. Limitations of the design and successes/shortcomings of attack mitigation are reported --Abstract, page iii