Attenuating the Impact of Integrity Attacks on Real-Time Pricing in Smart Grids

Abstract: The vulnerability of false data injection attacks on real-time electricity pricing for the power grid market has been recently explored. Previous work has focused on the impact caused by attackers that compromise pricing signals and send false prices to a subset of consumers. In this paper we extend previous work by considering a more powerful and general adversary model, a new analysis method based on sensitivity functions, and by proposing several countermeasures that can mitigate the negative impact of these attacks. Countermeasures include adding a low-pass filter to the pricing signals, selecting the time interval between price updates, selecting parameters of the controller, designing robust control algorithms, and by detecting anomalies in the behavior of the system.