Agent Based Simulation of Botnet Volumetric and Amplification Attack Scenarios Applied to Smart Grid Systems

All industries rely on smart grid infrastructures and systems to energy systems to provide power supply to industries and individual users for innovation, economic growth and sustainability as part of SGD goals. However, recent attacks on the smart grid using various attack methods have made it inevitable to provide security implementation for sustainable development infrastructures and economic growth. Agent-based simulation (ABS) considers modelling complex adaptive systems in a heterogeneous environment to detect their interactive behaviours and attacks. Agents can represent people, households, and business entities in a smart grid system. ABSs are created with three core attributes, the declaration of the agent’s architectures and associated agent classes, an agent environment, and the software modules to establish communication protocols between agents. However, threat actors can use these attributes to cause Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and False Data Injection Attacks (FDIA) on the smart grid. The paper presents an agent-based simulation of offensive botnet interactions within a smart grid system and considers amplification attack scenarios of DDoS and FDIA on the smart grid. The contribution of the paper is threefold. First, we explore how botnet agent attacks systems using ABS impact of cooperative defence during DDoS and FDIA attacks. Secondly, we implement attack models using GAMA tool to determine offensive botnet interactions within a smart grid system. Finally, we recommend control mechanisms to prevent offensive botnets on the smart grid network. The results show that ABS could be used to detect offensive botnet interactions within smart grid systems to improve cybersecurity