Extended Abstract: Markov Game Analysis for Attack-Defense of Power Networks

Electricity grids are critical infrastructures. They are credible targets of active (e.g., terrorist) attacks since their disruption may lead to sizable losses economically and in human lives. It is thus crucial to develop decision support that can guide administrators in deploying defense resources for system security and reliability. Prior work on the defense of critical infrastructures has typically used static or Stackelberg games. These approaches view network interdictions as one-time events. However, infrastructure protection is also a continual process in which the defender and attacker interact to produce dynamic states affecting their best actions. In this paper, we use zero-sum Markov games to model these interactions subject to underlying uncertainties of real-world events and actions. We solve equilibrium mixed strategies of the players that maximize their respective minimum payoffs with a time-decayed metric. Using results for a 5-bus system [1] and a WCSS 9-bus system [2], we illustrate that our game model can provide useful insights.