Cybersecurity in Smart Grids: Detecting False Data Injection Attacks Utilizing Supervised Machine Learning Techniques

Abstract

By integrating advanced technologies and data-driven systems in smart grids, there has been a significant revolution in the energy distribution sector, bringing a new era of efficiency and sustainability. Nevertheless, with this advancement comes vulnerability, particularly in the form of cyber threats, which have the potential to damage critical infrastructure. False data injection attacks are among the threats to the cyber–physical layer of smart grids. False data injection attacks pose a significant risk, manipulating the data in the control system layer to compromise the grid’s integrity. An early detection and mitigation of such cyberattacks are crucial to ensuring the smart grid operates securely and reliably. In this research paper, we demonstrate different machine learning classification models for detecting false data injection attacks, including the Extra Tree, Random Forest, Extreme Gradient Boosting, Logistic Regression, Decision Tree, and Bagging Classifiers, to secure the integrity of smart grids. A comprehensive dataset of various attack scenarios provides insights to explore and develop effective detection models. Results show that the Extra Tree, Random Forest, and Extreme Gradient Boosting models’ accuracy in detecting the attack outperformed the existing literature, an achieving accuracy of 98%, 97%, and 97%, respectively.