Modeling and Mitigation of Cyber Attacks on SunSpec Modbus-based Smart Inverters Using a Real-Time CPES Testbed
This work demonstrates the exploitation of security vulnerabilities in SunSpec Modbus-based smart inverter communication protocol using a PHIL testbed and proposes a lightweight cryptographic security to effectively mitigate such cyber-attacks.
Overview
As smart inverters become integral to modern grid-support functions under IEEE 1547, their reliance on standardized communication protocols such as SunSpec Modbus introduces critical cybersecurity risks due to the absence of built-in protection mechanisms. This seminar presents a comprehensive investigation into these vulnerabilities by developing a structured cyber-attack model that exploits weaknesses in SunSpec Modbus communication. The study is validated on a high-fidelity real-time cyber-physical energy system (CPES) testbed incorporating Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL), enabling realistic demonstration of attack scenarios and their impact on inverter control and grid operations. Building on these insights, a lightweight yet robust security enhancement is proposed by augmenting the native protocol with Blake2s-based authentication and AES-256 encryption. The effectiveness of the proposed mitigation strategy is experimentally validated, showing significant resilience against cyber-attacks while maintaining low computational overhead. This work bridges the gap between theoretical vulnerability analysis and practical deployment, offering a scalable, efficient pathway to securing next-generation smart inverter communications.
Presenters
Brief Biography
Mohammad Asim Aftab is a Research Scientist at the Secure Next Generation Resilient Systems Lab (SENTRY) research group at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). He earned his BTech. (Hons.) in Electrical & Electronics Engineering in 2012, followed by an MTech. in Control & Instrumentation Systems (2015) and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering (2020) from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
Before joining KAUST, he served as an Assistant Professor in the Electrical & Instrumentation Engineering Department at the Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, where he taught and conducted research on smart grids, microgrids, and power system communication.
At KAUST, he contributes to cutting-edge research on resilient and intelligent power-system infrastructure, leveraging hardware-in-the-loop techniques and advanced communication protocols to address modern challenges in distributed energy networks. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed papers and is actively engaged in the academic community. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and currently serves as an Editorial Board member of the Springer Discover Energy Journal.
