Cybersecurity of Control Room of the Future: Using Artificial Intelligence to Strengthen Power Grid Cyber Resilience to Advanced Persistent Threats

Abstract

Power grids are currently facing novel and incumbent cybersecurity challenges posed by advanced persistent threats (APTs). They are perpetrated by advanced, often state-sponsored adversaries targeting transmission and distribution system operators. APTs and emerging well-resourced cyberattacks on control centers, digital substations, renewables, and storage technologies can cause distributed contingencies across the power system leading to N-k components being suddenly disconnected from the power grid. Cyberattacks may instigate multiple, unprecedented excitation modes and lead to protection schemes disconnecting other generators and power lines, which result in a fast domino effect called cascading failures. The impact of a cyberattack on power system dynamics can be fundamentally different from the consequences of physical faults or contingencies. APTs can speed up the cascading failure mechanisms, leading to an accelerated point of no return in the cascading failures sequence and potentially cause a blackout much faster than historical blackouts initiated by physical disturbances. This leaves insufficient time for reactive measures to contain the spread of disruptions and may result in an unprecedented large-scale, continental blackout.