Attacks on smart inverters can overload power grid lines
From Caveman to COBA: Coordinated Optimization-Based Attacks on Grid-Edge Smart Inverters in DER-Rich Power Systems
Cryptography and Security
Summary
Modern power systems use smart devices called inverters to manage electricity from rooftop solar panels and other small energy sources. The authors show that if a hacker takes control of the system managing these inverters, they can send commands that cause certain power lines to carry dangerously high loads. They created and tested a method called COBA to coordinate such attacks and found it can cause more severe overloads than simpler, less-informed attack strategies. This work highlights risks in power grids with many distributed energy resources and the importance of secure control systems.
What this means in practice
- •For power grid operators: Identify vulnerabilities in grid controls that could lead to line overloads from coordinated DER commands and improve defense strategies.
- •For energy cybersecurity teams: Simulate and assess risk scenarios where attackers exploit smart inverter coordination to disrupt power system stability.
Authors
Emad Abukhousa, Anna Raymaker, Animesh Chhotaray, Daniel Molzahn, Saman Zonouz, Sakis Meliopoulos
Abstract
Aggregation platforms and smart-inverter control channels can allow a compromised coordination layer to alter active- and reactive-power commands across a geographically distributed DER fleet. This paper introduces the Coordinated Optimization-Based Attack (COBA), which uses network information and location-specific DER P/Q setpoints to maximize thermal loading on a selected transmission corridor. COBA is compared with low-information CAV baselines limited to a single uniform fleet command: all-off, all-on, maximum reactive absorption, or maximum reactive injection. The Hawaii Synthetic Grid-37 Buses case is evaluated with rooftop-photovoltaic-like capability aggregated at 20 selected 69-kV buses and verified using MATPOWER power flow. Under the case's single-reference-bus balancing convention, COBA overloads B86 (WAIALUA69-WAIANAE69) near 30% penetration and B51 (COCONUT69-PALM69) near 55%, while same-target uniform loadings remain lower and uniform commands primarily stress other natural weak lines. The results show that topology, target selection, and command capability determine DER-induced thermal risk beyond aggregate penetration alone.