Time Stepped Cyber Physical Simulation of DoS, DoD, and FDI Attacks on the IEEE 14 Bus System

2026-02-28

AI Summary

This study addresses the vulnerability of modern power systems to cyber-physical attacks—specifically denial-of-service (DoS), data omission (DoD), and false data injection (FDI)—which exploit reliance on communication-based telemetry. The authors develop a lightweight, reproducible, pure-MATLAB time-stepped simulation framework built upon MATPOWER to perform full AC power flow simulations on the IEEE 14-bus system under 24-hour sinusoidal loading. The model incorporates reactive power limits and dynamic switching between PV and PQ bus types, enabling systematic evaluation of how each attack type dynamically affects physical metrics such as voltage profiles, generator dispatch, and network losses. For the first time within a unified platform, the work demonstrates that DoD induces the most severe physical distortion and reactive stress, DoS obscures load fluctuations and degrades situational awareness, and FDI creates significant divergence between actual and perceived voltages, thereby establishing a quantitative benchmark for cyber-physical security defense strategies.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Adversarial Attacks & Robustness
• Search and Optimization: Sampling/Simulation-based Search
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Attacks and countermeasures in recommendation systems

Abstract

Reliable grid operation depends on accurate and timely telemetry, making modern power systems vulnerable to communication layer cyberattacks. This paper evaluates how Denial of Service (DoS), Denial of Data (DoD), and False Data Injection (FDI) attacks disrupt the IEEE 14 bus system using a MATLAB only, time stepped simulation framework built on MATPOWER. The framework emulates a 24 hour operating cycle with sinusoidal load variation, introduces attack specific manipulation of load and voltage data, and performs full AC power flow solves with reactive limit enforcement (PV PQ switching). At each timestep, the system logs true and measured voltages, generator P/Q output, system losses, and voltage limit violations to capture transient cyber physical effects. Results show that DoD causes the largest physical distortions and reactive power stress, DoS masks natural variability and degrades situational awareness, and FDI creates significant discrepancies between true and perceived voltages. The study provides a compact, reproducible benchmark for analyzing cyber induced instability and informing future defense strategies.

Problem

• Cyber-Physical Systems
• Power System Security
• Denial of Service (DoS)
• False Data Injection (FDI)
• IEEE 14 Bus System

Innovation

• time-stepped simulation
• cyber-physical power system
• false data injection
• AC power flow with reactive limits
• MATPOWER-based framework