On time desynchronization attack against IEEE 1588 protocol in power grid systems

Real-time measurement and control are essential in electrical power grid systems and the timing requirements (such as time synchronization) on the measurement and control of power grid are critical. The IEEE 1588, as a precision clock synchronization protocol, was proposed to guarantee the precise clock synchronization in nanoseconds and has broad applications in power grid systems. In this paper, we first describe the modeling of the time synchronization process in the IEEE 1588 and analyze the impact of delay asymmetry, which can be exploited by the adversary to disrupt the time synchronization process. We then investigate a feasible attack workflow based on the attack model and discuss discuss countermeasures to defend against such an attack. We conduct experiments to validate the effectiveness of the investigated attack. Our experimental data matches with our theoretical findings well and show that our investigated attack can effectively disrupt the time synchronization process in the IEEE 1588.