812 research outputs found
Smart Grid Communications: Overview of Research Challenges, Solutions, and Standardization Activities
Optimization of energy consumption in future intelligent energy networks (or
Smart Grids) will be based on grid-integrated near-real-time communications
between various grid elements in generation, transmission, distribution and
loads. This paper discusses some of the challenges and opportunities of
communications research in the areas of smart grid and smart metering. In
particular, we focus on some of the key communications challenges for realizing
interoperable and future-proof smart grid/metering networks, smart grid
security and privacy, and how some of the existing networking technologies can
be applied to energy management. Finally, we also discuss the coordinated
standardization efforts in Europe to harmonize communications standards and
protocols.Comment: To be published in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial
Authentication techniques in smart grid: a systematic review
Smart Grid (SG) provides enhancement to existing grids with two-way communication between the utility, sensors, and consumers, by deploying smart sensors to monitor and manage power consumption. However due to the vulnerability of SG, secure component authenticity necessitates robust authentication approaches relative to limited resource availability (i.e. in terms of memory and computational power). SG communication entails optimum efficiency of authentication approaches to avoid any extraneous burden. This systematic review analyses 27 papers on SG authentication techniques and their effectiveness in mitigating certain attacks. This provides a basis for the design and use of optimized SG authentication approaches
Smart Grid Metering Networks: A Survey on Security, Privacy and Open Research Issues
Smart grid (SG) networks are newly upgraded networks of connected objects that greatly improve reliability, efficiency and sustainability of the traditional energy infrastructure. In this respect, the smart metering infrastructure (SMI) plays an important role in controlling, monitoring and managing multiple domains in the SG. Despite the salient features of SMI, security and privacy issues have been under debate because of the large number of heterogeneous devices that are anticipated to be coordinated through public communication networks. This survey paper shows a brief overview of real cyber attack incidents in traditional energy networks and those targeting the smart metering network. Specifically, we present a threat taxonomy considering: (i) threats in system-level security, (ii) threats and/or theft of services, and (iii) threats to privacy. Based on the presented threats, we derive a set of security and privacy requirements for SG metering networks. Furthermore, we discuss various schemes that have been proposed to address these threats, considering the pros and cons of each. Finally, we investigate the open research issues to shed new light on future research directions in smart grid metering networks
An Efficient Authentication Protocol for Smart Grid Communication Based on On-Chip-Error-Correcting Physical Unclonable Function
Security has become a main concern for the smart grid to move from research
and development to industry. The concept of security has usually referred to
resistance to threats by an active or passive attacker. However, since smart
meters (SMs) are often placed in unprotected areas, physical security has
become one of the important security goals in the smart grid. Physical
unclonable functions (PUFs) have been largely utilized for ensuring physical
security in recent years, though their reliability has remained a major problem
to be practically used in cryptographic applications. Although fuzzy extractors
have been considered as a solution to solve the reliability problem of PUFs,
they put a considerable computational cost to the resource-constrained SMs. To
that end, we first propose an on-chip-error-correcting (OCEC) PUF that
efficiently generates stable digits for the authentication process. Afterward,
we introduce a lightweight authentication protocol between the SMs and
neighborhood gateway (NG) based on the proposed PUF. The provable security
analysis shows that not only the proposed protocol can stand secure in the
Canetti-Krawczyk (CK) adversary model but also provides additional security
features. Also, the performance evaluation demonstrates the significant
improvement of the proposed scheme in comparison with the state-of-the-art
Lightweight Authentication and Key Agreement for Smart Metering in Smart Energy Networks
Smart meters are considered as foundational part of the smart metering infrastructure (SMI) in smart energy networks. Smart meter is a digital device that makes use of two-way communication between consumer and utility to exchange, manage and control energy consumptions within a home. However, despite all the features, a smart meter raises several security-related concerns. For instance, how to exchange data between the legal entities (e.g., smart meter and utility server) while maintaining privacy of the consumer. To address these concerns, authentication and key agreement in SMI can provide important security properties that not only to maintain a trust between the legitimate entities but also to satisfy other security services. This work presents a lightweight authentication and key agreement (LAKA) that enables trust, anonymity, integrity and adequate security in the domain of smart energy network. The proposed scheme employs hybrid cryptography to facilitate mutual trust (authentication), dynamic session key, integrity, and anonymity. We justify the feasibility of the proposed scheme with a test-bed using 802.15.4 based device (i.e., smart meter). Moreover, through the security and performance analysis, we show that the proposed scheme is more effective and energy efficient compared to the previous schemes
Lightweight payload encryption-based authentication scheme for advanced metering infrastructure sensor networks
The Internet of Things (IoT) connects billions of sensors to share and collect data at any time and place. The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is one of the most important IoT applications. IoT supports AMI to collect data from smart sensors, analyse and measure abnormalities in the energy consumption pattern of sensors. However, two-way communication in distributed sensors is sensitive and tends towards security and privacy issues. Before deploying distributed sensors, data confidentiality and privacy and message authentication for sensor devices and control messages are the major security requirements. Several authentications and encryption protocols have been developed to provide confidentiality and integrity. However, many sensors in distributed systems, resource constraint smart sensors, and adaptability of IoT communication protocols in sensors necessitate designing an efficient and lightweight security authentication scheme. This paper proposes a Payload Encryption-based Optimisation Scheme for lightweight authentication (PEOS) on distributed sensors. The PEOS integrates and optimises important features of Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) in Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) architecture instead of implementing the DTLS in a separate channel. The proposed work designs a payload encryption scheme and an Optimised Advanced Encryption Standard (OP-AES). The PEOS modifies the DTLS handshaking and retransmission processes in PEOS using payload encryption and NACK messages, respectively. It also removes the duplicate features of the protocol version and sequence number without impacting the performance of CoAP. Moreover, the PEOS attempts to improve the CoAP over distributed sensors in the aspect of optimised AES operations, such as parallel execution of S-boxes in SubBytes and delayed Mixcolumns. The efficiency of PEOS authentication is evaluated on Conitki OS using the Cooja simulator for lightweight security and authentication. The proposed scheme attains better throughput while minimising the message size overhead by 9% and 23% than the existing payload-based mutual authentication PbMA and basic DTLS/CoAP scheme in random network topologies with less than 50 nodes
Survey on Wi-Fi and Cellular Communication Technology for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in a Developing Economy
Traditional energy meters have suffered from a lack of automated analysis and inaccuracy in reading energy consumption, which has brought about smart metering systems. Developing economies such as in Africa. still experience a setback in electricity monitoring and load distribution because of existing traditional meter systems in use. Communication technologies play an important role to improve the monitoring of energy consumption and ensure a road map toward a smart grid. This paper reviews communication technologies used for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) emphasizing Wi-Fi and Cellular technologies. Metrics used to evaluate their performance include cost, energy efficiency, coverage, deployment, latency, payload, and scalability. The review presents a benchmark for research on AMI communication technologies in developing economies. When adopted, the expected AMI benefits are reduced energy theft, cost efficiency, real-time analysis, security, and safety of energy supply in developing economies
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