Deep Learning for Smart Grid Intrusion Detection: A Hybrid CNN-LSTM-Based Model

As digital technology becomes more deeply embedded in power systems, protecting the communication networks of Smart Grids (SG) has emerged as a critical concern. Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3) represents a multi-tiered application layer protocol extensively utilized in Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)-based smart grids to facilitate real-time data gathering and control functionalities. Robust Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are necessary for early threat detection and mitigation because of the interconnection of these networks, which makes them vulnerable to a variety of cyberattacks. To solve this issue, this paper develops a hybrid Deep Learning (DL) model specifically designed for intrusion detection in smart grids. The proposed approach is a combination of the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and the Long-Short-Term Memory algorithms (LSTM). We employed a recent intrusion detection dataset (DNP3), which focuses on unauthorized commands and Denial of Service (DoS) cyberattacks, to train and test our model. The results of our experiments show that our CNN-LSTM method is much better at finding smart grid intrusions than other deep learning algorithms used for classification. In addition, our proposed approach improves accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score, achieving a high detection accuracy rate of 99.50%.