A Novel Data Integrity Attack on Consensus-Based Distributed Energy Management Algorithm Using Local Information

This paper introduces a novel data integrity attack on the well-developed consensus-based energy management algorithm. In particular, we show that by sending out elaborately falsified information during the consensus iterations, attackers could manipulate the system operating point and gain extra economic benefits. Meanwhile, the system-level and device-level constraints are still satisfied, e.g., the power generation and demand are balanced, and the operation of individual device respects physical constraints. This data integrity attack has two major features: First, attackers rely only on local information to complete the attack; neither additional information about system topology nor additional colluders are required; second, the attacking effect is accumulative, which enables attackers to choose to finish in either single or multiple iterations. By revealing such vulnerability of consensus-based applications to data integrity attack, this paper conveys the message that besides the efforts of designing novel distributed energy management algorithms to address the renewable energy integration challenges, it is equally important to protect the distributed energy management algorithms from possible malicious attacks to avoid potential economic losses. The proposed attack is illustrated in the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management system.