Advanced Cybersecurity Strategies for Cyber-Physical Systems: Case Studies in EV Charging Stations, Connected & Automated Vehicles, and Digital Substations

Abstract

The rapid advancement of electric mobility, smart transportation, and digital infrastructures highlights the pressing need for robust cybersecurity mechanisms to protect cyber-physical systems (CPSs) from emerging threats. This dissertation presents a comprehensive study on enhancing cybersecurity measures across three critical applications: electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, connected and automated vehicles (CAVs), and digital substations. For CAVs, we address the complexity of post-accident cyber-attack event analysis, which is crucial for smart mobility in urban environments. A novel investigation framework using the 5Ws and 1H approach is introduced to handle CAV-related cyber-attack accidents. This study also proposes a stochastic anomaly detection system to recognize abnormal activities within the automated driving system (ADS) functions, ensuring real-time decision-making accuracy amidst cyber threats. In the context of EV charging stations (EVCSs), we employ STRIDE-based threat modeling and develop a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to identify and mitigate potential cyber threats. A weighted attack-defense tree is utilized to generate various attack scenarios, allowing the analysis of security impacts and suggesting appropriate defense strategies. The proposed model significantly improves the overall charging efficiency and cyber-physical security of the charging network. Finally, we focus on cybersecurity enhancement in digital substations, presenting a sophisticated framework to safeguard IEC 61850-based substations. Integrating software-defined networking (SDN) and digital twin (DT) technologies, our approach features smart cyber switching (SCS) and adaptive port controller (APC) to dynamically manage threats. An advanced intrusion detection system (IDS) is also proposed to protect against attacks on substation communication networks. Rigorous simulations and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbeds validate the framework’s effectiveness in sustaining operations during cyber-attacks. Overall, this dissertation provides a multi-faceted exploration of cybersecurity strategies tailored to distinct CPSs, contributing significantly to the field of smart infrastructure protection and resilience.