Review on cyber-physical security of the smart grid: Attacks and defense mechanisms

Because of the current power grid limitations, the Smart Grid is proposed as a promising alternative. It supports green energy resources and enhances power generation, delivery and distribution. For better energy management, extensive data exchange between subsystems and the control plane is needed. Since the Smart Grid uses existing technologies for communication, it inherits their defects. Targeting these flaws can lead to confidential data disclosure, cascading failures or blackouts. Therefore, securing the Smart Grid is crucial for achieving the required performance. We first discuss the weaknesses of the Smart Grid, the common attacks and their consequences. We then introduce cyber-physical defense algorithms and summarize the results of their performance evaluation. In all, simulation results performed by many researchers all lead to the same conclusion: security of the Smart Grid depends on combined physical and cyber security.