Trust in control: a trust model for power system network assessment

¹ OFFIS – Institute for Information Technology, Energy Division, Escherweg 2, 26121 Oldenburg, Germany
² Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, Center for Secure Energy Informatics, Urstein Süd 1, 5412 Puch bei Hallein, Austria

^* Corresponding author: michael.brand@offis.de

Published online: 15 October 2019

Abstract

The question of whether a process variable transmitted from a device in the field to a power system control center is trustworthy is of high importance nowadays. Traditional bad data detection schemes have their limits in cases of elaborated cyberattacks and cascading failures in a system of systems such as a digitalized power system. This paper proposes a trust model designed for power system network assessment (PSNA). Different to other domains, where trust models already exist (e.g., OC-Trust for organic computing systems), the environment for PSNA is more centralized, and the focus lies on other facets than in organic computing due to the nature of the environment. Therefore, OC-Trust is tailored by categorizing its facets regarding their relevance for PSNA on the one hand. On the other hand, the trust model is extended to realize context-sensitive intersections of trust values. Furthermore, an example of an instantiation of the resulting PSNA-Trust model is given. Two security metrics and one credibility metric based on literature are presented as well as an equation for a context-sensitive intersection.