Article
Denial-of-Service Attack on IEC 61850-Based Substation
Automation System: A Crucial Cyber Threat towards Smart
Substation Pathways
Suleman Ashraf
1
, Mohammad H. Shawon
1
, Haris M. Khalid
2
and S. M. Muyeen
1,3,
*
Citation: Ashraf, S.; Shawon, M.H.;
Khalid, H.M.; Muyeen, S.M.
Denial-of-Service Attack on IEC
61850-Based Substation Automation
System: A Crucial Cyber Threat
towards Smart Substation Pathways.
Sensors 2021, 21, 6415. https://
doi.org/10.3390/s21196415
Academic Editors: Alexios Mylonas,
Nikolaos Pitropakis and Weizhi Meng
Received: 7 July 2021
Accepted: 22 September 2021
Published: 26 September 2021
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4.0/).
1
School of Electrical Engineering Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA 1987,
Australia; suleman.ashraf@student.curtin.edu.au (S.A.); mhshawon@postgrad.curtin.edu.au (M.H.S.)
2
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Higher Colleges of Technology, Sharjah 27272,
United Arab Emirates; harism.khalid@ieee.org
3
Department of Electrical Engineering, Qatar University, Doha 2713, Qatar
* Correspondence: sm.muyeen@curtin.edu.au
Abstract:
The generation of the mix-based expansion of modern power grids has urged the utilization
of digital infrastructures. The introduction of Substation Automation Systems (SAS), advanced
networks and communication technologies have drastically increased the complexity of the power
system, which could prone the entire power network to hackers. The exploitation of the cyber security
vulnerabilities by an attacker may result in devastating consequences and can leave millions of people
in severe power outage. To resolve this issue, this paper presents a network model developed in
OPNET that has been subjected to various Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to demonstrate cyber
security aspect of an international electrotechnical commission (IEC) 61850 based digital substations.
The attack scenarios have exhibited significant increases in the system delay and the prevention of
messages, i.e., Generic Object-Oriented Substation Events (GOOSE) and Sampled Measured Values
(SMV), from being transmitted within an acceptable time frame. In addition to that, it may cause
malfunction of the devices such as unresponsiveness of Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), which
could eventually lead to catastrophic scenarios, especially under different fault conditions. The
simulation results of this work focus on the DoS attack made on SAS. A detailed set of rigorous case
studies have been conducted to demonstrate the effects of these attacks.
Keywords:
anomaly detection; cyber-attacks; cyber-attack detection; cyber grid elements; cyber
threat; denial-of-service attack; intrusion detection; power systems; power system dynamics; smart
grid; substation automation system; substation pathways
1. Introduction
In this era of rapid development of modern civilization, the electrical power grid
is considered as one of the most important and critical infrastructures for any country.
The evolution of smart grid and the introduction of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT) have made the power grid vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other se-
curity threats. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reports that
there have been significant increases in the number of cyber-attacks on electrical power
grids over the last decade [
1
]. One of the most notable cyber-attacks on power grid is
the strike on the Ukrainian power grid in December 2015, where the hacker accessed the
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) information, disrupted the normal
operation, and caused the disconnection of 30 substations in total, affecting 225,000 cus-
tomers for approximately 3 h [
2
]. The major attacks on the electric power grid [
3
] in this
millennium has been depicted in Figure 1. In this context, NIST has outlined and set the
three primary cyber security requirements for the smart grid. These three requirements
are: (1) availability, (2) integrity, and (3) confidentiality, respectively [
4
]. They are further
termed as the “essential criteria for cyber security”.
Sensors 2021, 21, 6415. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196415 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
