This paper proposes a simple and fast method to assess the vulnerable attack path in a power system, which an attacker can take to create maximum damage in the system. The maximum damage is assessed based on the load disruption caused, or the island formed as a consequence of the attack. Since an attacker may need to launch the attack multiple times (termed as multilevel) to achieve the desired disruption, finding the critical path becomes a multilevel exploration task. During each level-$i$, the attacker's target becomes to identify the most vulnerable lines/outages of the system. In this work, a three-step scheme is developed wherein, Stage-1 identifies the location of vulnerability using graph theoretical concepts of nodal betweenness centrality (NBC) and node load capacity (NLC). Stage-2 estimates the cascading failures based on the impact caused by the $N-k-\{i\}$ outages in the system and Stage-3 finally identifies the critical path. The proposed methodology is tested on the IEEE 14-bus system. Based on the results obtained, it is inferred that by incorporating the concepts of NBC and NLC, the process of finding critical path becomes much easier and faster than the traditional methods that utilise load flow studies for finding the same.
A Fast Multilevel Vulnerability Assessment Strategy for Power Systems Cyber Security
31.07.2024
824662 byte
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch