Cyber security in cyber-physical systems: On false data injection attacks in the smart grid

The cyber-physical system (CPS) is a system that can efficiently integrate both cyber and physical components by leveraging modern sensing, computing, and networking technologies. As an important role of CPS, sensors can obtain measurements of physical components and transmit the measurement data to the control center through communication networks. Nonetheless, sensor networks can pose serious security challenges to CPSs as well. In this chapter, we first review CPSs and wireless sensor networks in CPSs. We then take the smart grid as an example of a CPS and investigate the impacts of one category of attacks, namely false data injection attacks, against the operation of the smart grid. Through a combination of theoretical analysis and performance evaluation, we find that false data injection attacks can disrupt the electricity market operations, posing an increased electricity price to consumers. We also discuss the impacts of false data injection attacks on other key functions in the smart grid, including energy distribution, state estimation, etc.