Consecutive Load Redistribution Attack Without Line Admittance Information

This paper develops a novel method for launching a stealthy Load Redistribution Attack (LRA) without requiring knowledge of the power network’s admittance matrix. Initially, equations involving the admittance matrix in the conventional LRA model are substituted with equivalent conditions utilizing the Power Transfer Distribution Factor (PTDF) matrix. Subsequently, a ridge regression approach is applied to estimate the PTDF matrix based on the hijacked Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) data. To maximize the damage inflicted by the proposed LRA, a consecutively small-scale attack strategy is designed to gather more informative data, and the PTDF matrix estimation is then updated accordingly to enhance its accuracy. Ultimately, a stealthy LRA is completed using the final PTDF matrix estimation. The rationale behind employing the PTDF matrix estimation in the proposed method, as opposed to the estimation of the admittance matrix, is that the latter requires information on bus voltage phase angles not supplied by the SCADA system. Simulations on the IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 118-bus system, without admittance information for grid transmission lines, demonstrate the accuracy and efficacy of the proposed attack.