  Recent advances in Machine Learning(ML) have led to its broad adoption in a
series of power system applications, ranging from meter data analytics,
renewable/load/price forecasting to grid security assessment. Although these
data-driven methods yield state-of-the-art performances in many tasks, the
robustness and security of applying such algorithms in modern power grids have
not been discussed. In this paper, we attempt to address the issues regarding
the security of ML applications in power systems. We first show that most of
the current ML algorithms proposed in power systems are vulnerable to
adversarial examples, which are maliciously crafted input data. We then adopt
and extend a simple yet efficient algorithm for finding subtle perturbations,
which could be used for generating adversaries for both categorical(e.g., user
load profile classification) and sequential applications(e.g., renewables
generation forecasting). Case studies on classification of power quality
disturbances and forecast of building loads demonstrate the vulnerabilities of
current ML algorithms in power networks under our adversarial designs. These
vulnerabilities call for design of robust and secure ML algorithms for real
world applications.
