Fuzzing for Power Grids: A Comparative Study of Existing Frameworks and a New Method for Detecting Silent Crashes in Control Devices

Power grids serve as the backbone of modern society, supplying electricity for a wide range of critical uses, including the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. As the power grid infrastructure becomes more reliant on networked digital technologies, it also becomes more vulnerable to cyberattacks. To ensure the resilience and security of the power grid, it is necessary to identify security vulnerabilities in power electronic devices. Fuzzing is an effective technique for detecting security flaws in software/firmware by subjecting the system under test to a series of unexpected inputs, which elicits unexpected behavior such as system crashes. While some work has been done on fuzzing power grid systems, there still lacks a comprehensive, comparative study of existing solutions. Furthermore, new methods are still needed to detect unexpected behaviors of power electronic devices during fuzzing. In this paper, we first conduct a survey and a comparative study of existing fuzzing frameworks for power grid systems. We then hypothesize and verify the use of electromagnetic waves as a method to detect silent system crashes in power electronic devices, aiming to advance fuzzing in this field.