Research Focus

My research focuses on enhancing the cyber resilience of renewable-dominated power grids. The six phases shown below follow the attack lifecycle: each inherits inputs from the preceding phase and passes structured outputs to the next, strengthening the system's cyber resilience as a whole.

• Identification

  Description: Builds a prioritised set of attack scenarios by connecting cyber vulnerabilities and adversary actions to physical-state trajectories, protection responses, and grid-operating constraints. Scenarios are ranked jointly by cyber likelihood, physical consequence, and sensitivity to operating conditions.

  Selected publications

  • Mengxiang Liu, Chengcheng Zhao, Ruilong Deng, Peng Cheng, and Jiming Chen, “False Data Injection Attacks and the Distributed Countermeasure in DC Microgrids,” IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 1962–1974, Dec. 2022.
  • Qiliang Jiang, Mengxiang Liu, and Ruilong Deng, “Vulnerability Assessment of Grid-Forming Inverters to Cyberattacks,” 2026 IEEE PES International Meeting (PES IM), Hong Kong, 2026, pp. 1–5.
  • Rong Guo, Mengxiang Liu, and Ruilong Deng, “Vulnerability Assessment of High-Voltage Direct Current Transmission Systems to Cyberattacks,” Security and Safety, vol. 4, art. 2025008, 2025.
  • Ze Yu, Mengxiang Liu, and Mingyang Sun, “Exploring Smart Grid Vulnerability Against Intelligent Inverter Parameter Tampering Attack,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 5541–5555, Nov. 2025.
  • Yifan Liu, Mengxiang Liu, Wenxuan Ma, Ruilong Deng, Peng Cheng, and Jiming Chen, “Enhancing Cyber Resilience of High-Renewable Power Systems: Threat Pathways and Targeted Countermeasures,” The Innovation Energy, 2026. doi:10.59717/j.xinn-energy.2026.100169.
  • Qi Liu, Chengcheng Zhao, Mengxiang Liu, Ruilong Deng, and Peng Cheng, “Submodularity-Based False Data Injection Attack Strategy in DC Microgrids,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 20, pp. 2342–2356, 2025.
  • Dongmeng Qiu, Mengxiang Liu, Rui Zhang, Tianyu Luo, Antonio Griffo, and Xin Zhang, “Cyber-Physical Real-Time Digital Simulation for Cybersecurity Analysis in Microgrids,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems, vol. 3, pp. 429–441, 2025.

• Prevention

  Description: Combines cyber controls such as authentication, encryption, segmentation, and patching with physics-based measures such as robust control and preventive redispatch. These measures reduce both attack probability and physical impact while defining the residual-risk envelope passed to detection.

  Selected publications

  • Hengye Zhu, Mengxiang Liu, Binbin Chen, Xin Che, Peng Cheng, and Ruilong Deng, “HoneyJudge: A PLC Honeypot Identification Framework Based on Device Memory Testing,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 19, pp. 6028–6043, 2024.
  • Bowen Xu, Mengxiang Liu, Rui Zhong, Ke Zuo, and Ruilong Deng, “Optimal Defense Resource Allocation Considering Nonlinear Attack Cost in Power Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 683–692, Jan. 2025.
  • Bowen Xu, Mengxiang Liu, and Ruilong Deng, “Optimal Defense Resource Allocation in Smart Grid: A Network Partition-Based Approach for Large-Scale Cases,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 5416–5429, Nov. 2025.
  • Wenxuan Ma, Guangrun Hong, Mengxiang Liu, and Ruilong Deng, “Post-Quantum Security Enhancement for Secondary Control in DC Microgrids,” 2026 IEEE PES International Meeting (PES IM), Hong Kong, 2026.

• Detection

  Description: Fuses cyber-layer evidence from logs, network traffic, and endpoints with physics-based checks of voltages, frequencies, power flows, and control responses. It produces time-stamped alerts enriched with the attack type, affected control loops, and projected physical consequences.

  Selected publications

  • Mengxiang Liu, Chengcheng Zhao, Zhenyong Zhang, Ruilong Deng, Peng Cheng, and Jiming Chen, “Converter-Based Moving Target Defense Against Deception Attacks in DC Microgrids,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 3984–3996, Sept. 2022.
  • Mengxiang Liu, Chengcheng Zhao, Zhenyong Zhang, and Ruilong Deng, “Explicit Analysis on Effectiveness and Hiddenness of Moving Target Defense in AC Power Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 37, no. 6, pp. 4732–4746, Nov. 2022.
  • Mengxiang Liu, Xin Zhang, Hengye Zhu, Zhenyong Zhang, and Ruilong Deng, “Physics-Aware Watermarking Embedded in Unknown Input Observers for False Data Injection Attack Detection in Cyber-Physical Microgrids,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 19, pp. 7824–7840, 2024.
  • Sha Peng, Mengxiang Liu, Li Chai, and Ruilong Deng, “DST-GNN: A Dynamic Spatiotemporal Graph Neural Network for Cyberattack Detection in Grid-Tied Photovoltaic Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 330–343, Jan. 2025.
  • Yawen Xue, Jie Pan, Yangyang Geng, Zeyu Yang, Mengxiang Liu, and Ruilong Deng, “Real-Time Intrusion Detection Based on Decision Fusion in Industrial Control Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems, vol. 2, pp. 143–153, 2024.

• Mitigation

  Description: Contains detected attacks while minimising disruption to electricity service. Cyber isolation is coordinated with local fallback control, emergency grid support, autonomous inverter derating, and system-level redispatch to stabilise the grid and keep it within a recoverable operating range.

  Selected publications

  • Mengxiang Liu, Xin Zhang, Chengcheng Zhao, and Ruilong Deng, “Matrix Coding Enabled Impact Mitigation Against Primary False Data Injection Attacks in Cyber-Physical Microgrids,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 40, no. 4, pp. 3144–3159, July 2025.
  • Mengxiang Liu, Xin Zhang, Rui Zhang, Zhuoran Zhou, Zhenyong Zhang, and Ruilong Deng, “Detection-Triggered Recursive Impact Mitigation Against Secondary False Data Injection Attacks in Cyber-Physical Microgrid,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 1744–1761, Mar. 2025.
  • Yuqi Wang, Mengxiang Liu, Milijana Odavic, and Xin Zhang, “Robust Unknown Input Observer Based Estimation and Mitigation Against Sensor Spoofing Attacks in Cyber-Physical Microgrids,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 2026. doi:10.1109/TSG.2026.3703593.

• Recovery

  Description: Jointly restores cyber services and physical grid functions because communication reconnection, asset trust, feeder re-energisation, and load restoration depend on one another. Co-restoration planning seeks to minimise recovery time while respecting safety constraints, limited resources, incomplete information, and continuing adversarial activity.

  Selected publications

  • Mengxiang Liu, Zhuda Chu, and Fei Teng, “Cyber Recovery From Dynamic Load Altering Attacks: Linking Electricity, Transportation, and Cyber Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 20, pp. 3862–3876, 2025.

• Assessment

  Description: Quantifies how effectively the preceding phases preserve electricity service during cyber incidents. Coupled cyber-infrastructure, physical-infrastructure, and service-delivery curves measure degradation depth, duration, and the service retained through cyber-physical coordination, while the results feed back to improve every phase.

  Selected publications

  TBA