Vulnerability analysis of large-scale dynamical networks to coordinated attacks

We study the vulnerability of large-scale linear dynamical networks to coordinated attacks. We consider scenarios in which an attacker can tamper with the links connecting the network components and can also manipulate input injections at the nodes. When these two types of attacks take place simultaneously, the attack is referred to as a coordinated attack. We assume that network links are attacked with a certain probability and that malicious data is injected at the input ports. We employ Markov jump linear systems to model link-based attacks and the system input matrix to model data injection attacks. System theoretic vulnerability metrics developed in earlier work are used to analyze network vulnerability to coordinated attacks. These measures of vulnerability allow us to characterize the impact of coordinated attacks and the difficulty associated with detecting them. Finally, we analyze the vulnerability of coordinated attacks on the New England 39 bus power network.