Cyber-Resilience Enhancement With Cross-Domain Software-Defined Network for Cyber-Physical Microgrids Against Denial of Service Attacks

Abstract

In Cyber-Physical Systems, maintaining cyber-resilience is critical due to the prevailing asymmetry that benefits attackers, especially concerning Denial of Service attacks that target system availability. In response, this paper introduces a cross-domain approach, utilizing Software-Defined Networking to adapt communication topology and control gain scheduling, thereby enhancing cyber-resilience against attacks. A cyber-resilience validation platform is developed, integrating hardware-in-the-loop with domain-specific simulation tools, to ensure accurate replication of real-world cyber-physical scenarios. An integral aspect of this framework is the real-time exploitation of metrics for agile responses to attacks. Validating our approach with an IEEE 34-bus test feeder for the physical domain and Cisco Modeling Lab for the cyber domain shows a 43% to 66% reduction in average latency compared to scenarios without our proposal during attacks, alongside enhanced rewards in both communication and physical networks. These findings accentuate the efficacy of the proposed cross-domain SDN approach in enhancing the cyber-resilience.