Coordinated Cyber Attack on Coupled Power and Transportation Networks

With the increasing adoption of electric vehicles, the deepening coupling between transportation network (TN) and power network (PN) allows cyber attacks to propagate across networks, posing a significant threat to the stable operation of such coupled power-transportation network (CPTN). This paper proposes an innovative coordinated cyber attack strategy, where the attacker not only implements load redistribution attacks within the PN but also manipulates traffic demand data to simulate similar demand redistribution attacks in the TN. We first establishe a mathematical model of the CPTN, detailing the coupling mechanism, and then formulate the coordinated cyber attack problem as a bilevel nonlinear optimization problem. The upper-level model simulates the attacker's strategy, aiming to maximize the operation costs of the CPTN, while the lower-level model represents the system's scheduling response, seeking to minimize operation costs. To solve this complex bilevel model, the study applies the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions to transform it into a single-level optimization problem and uses the big-M method and piecewise linearization to handle nonlinear constraints, thereby enhancing computational efficiency and accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed cyber attack strategy significantly increases system operation costs, revealing the serious threat it poses to secure and economic network operations.