ARIMA-based modeling and validation of consumption readings in power grids

Varun Badrinath Krishna, Ravishankar K. Iyer, William H. Sanders

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Smart meters are increasingly being deployed to measure electricity consumption of residential as well as non-residential consumers. The readings reported by these meters form a time series, which is stored at electric utility servers for billing purposes. Invalid readings may be reported because of malicious compromise of the smart meters themselves, or of the network infrastructure that supports their communications. Although many of these meters come equipped with encrypted communications, they may potentially be vulnerable to cyber intrusions. Therefore, there is a need for an additional layer of validation to detect these intrusion attempts. In this paper, we make three contributions. First, we show that the ARMA model proposed in the anomaly detection literature is unsuitable for electricity consumption as most consumers exhibit non-stationary consumption behavior. We use automated model fitting methods from the literature to show that first-order differencing of these non-stationary readings makes them weakly stationary. Thus, we propose the use of ARIMA forecasting methods for validating consumption readings. Second, we evaluate the effectiveness of ARIMA forecasting in the context of a specific attack model, where smart meter readings are modified to steal electricity. Third, we propose additional checks on mean and variance that can mitigate the total amount of electricity that can be stolen by an attacker by 77.46%. Our evaluation is based on a real, open dataset of readings obtained from 450 consumer meters.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCritical Information Infrastructures Security - 10th International Conference, CRITIS 2015, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsStephen D. Wolthusen, Stephen D. Wolthusen, Marianthi Theocharidou, Erich Rome
PublisherSpringer
Pages199-210
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783319333304
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016
Event10th International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures Security, CRITIS 2015 - Berlin, Germany
Duration: Oct 5 2015Oct 7 2015

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9578
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Other

Other10th International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures Security, CRITIS 2015
Country/TerritoryGermany
CityBerlin
Period10/5/1510/7/15

Keywords

  • ARIMA
  • ARMA
  • Anomaly
  • Attack
  • Auto
  • Average
  • Critical
  • Cyberphysical
  • Detection
  • Electricity
  • Forecasting
  • Infrastructure
  • Integrated
  • Measurements
  • Meter
  • Moving
  • Regressive
  • Security
  • Smart
  • Theft

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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