2,391 research outputs found
A Multi-User, Single-Authentication Protocol for Smart Grid Architectures
open access articleIn a smart grid system, the utility server collects data from various smart grid devices. These data play an important role in the energy distribution and balancing between the energy providers and energy consumers. However, these data are prone to tampering attacks by an attacker, while traversing from the smart grid devices to the utility servers, which may result in energy disruption or imbalance. Thus, an authentication is mandatory to efficiently authenticate the devices and the utility servers and avoid tampering attacks. To this end, a group authentication algorithm is proposed for preserving demand–response security in a smart grid. The proposed mechanism also provides a fine-grained access control feature where the utility server can only
access a limited number of smart grid devices. The initial authentication between the utility server and smart grid device in a group involves a single public key operation, while the subsequent authentications with the same device or other devices in the same group do not need a public key operation. This reduces the overall computation and communication overheads and takes less time to successfully establish a secret session key, which is used to exchange sensitive information over an unsecured wireless channel. The resilience of the proposed algorithm is tested against various attacks using formal and informal security analysis
Security Challenges in Smart-Grid Metering and Control Systems
The smart grid is a next-generation power system that is increasingly attracting the attention of government, industry, and academia. It is an upgraded electricity network that depends on two-way digital communications between supplier and consumer that in turn give support to intelligent metering and monitoring systems. Considering that energy utilities play an increasingly important role in our daily life, smart-grid technology introduces new security challenges that must be addressed. Deploying a smart grid without adequate security might result in serious consequences such as grid instability, utility fraud, and loss of user information and energy-consumption data. Due to the heterogeneous communication architecture of smart grids, it is quite a challenge to design sophisticated and robust security mechanisms that can be easily deployed to protect communications among different layers of the smart grid-infrastructure. In this article, we focus on the communication-security aspect of a smart-grid metering and control system from the perspective of cryptographic techniques, and we discuss different mechanisms to enhance cybersecurity of the emerging smart grid. We aim to provide a comprehensive vulnerability analysis as well as novel insights on the cybersecurity of a smart grid
A Survey on Cryptography Key Management Schemes for Smart Grid
A Smart grid is a modern electricity delivery system. It is an integration of energy systems and other necessary elements including traditional upgrades and new grid technologies with renewable generation and increased consumer storage. It uses information and communication technology (ICT) to operate, monitor and control data between the generation source and the end user. Smart grids have duplex power flow and communication to achieve high efficiency, reliability, environmental, economics, security and safety standards. However, along with unique facilities, smart grids face security challenges such as access control, connectivity, fault tolerance, privacy, and other security issues. Cyber-attacks, in the recent past, on critical infrastructure including smart grids have highlighted security as a major requirement for smart grids. Therefore, cryptography and key management are necessary for smart grids to become secure and realizable. Key management schemes are processes of key organizational frameworks, distribution, generation, refresh and key storage policies. Currently, several secure schemes, related to key management for smart grid have been proposed to achieve end-to-end secure communication. This paper presents a comprehensive survey and discussion on the current state of the key management of smart grids
Key Management Systems for Smart Grid Advanced Metering Infrastructure: A Survey
Smart Grids are evolving as the next generation power systems that involve
changes in the traditional ways of generation, transmission and distribution of
power. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is one of the key components in
smart grids. An AMI comprises of systems and networks, that collects and
analyzes data received from smart meters. In addition, AMI also provides
intelligent management of various power-related applications and services based
on the data collected from smart meters. Thus, AMI plays a significant role in
the smooth functioning of smart grids.
AMI is a privileged target for security attacks as it is made up of systems
that are highly vulnerable to such attacks. Providing security to AMI is
necessary as adversaries can cause potential damage against infrastructures and
privacy in smart grid. One of the most effective and challenging topic's
identified, is the Key Management System (KMS), for sustaining the security
concerns in AMI. Therefore, KMS seeks to be a promising research area for
future development of AMI. This survey work highlights the key security issues
of advanced metering infrastructures and focuses on how key management
techniques can be utilized for safeguarding AMI. First of all, we explore the
main features of advanced metering infrastructures and identify the
relationship between smart grid and AMI. Then, we introduce the security issues
and challenges of AMI. We also provide a classification of the existing works
in literature that deal with secure key management system in AMI. Finally, we
identify possible future research directions of KMS in AMI
A Comprehensive Survey on the Cyber-Security of Smart Grids: Cyber-Attacks, Detection, Countermeasure Techniques, and Future Directions
One of the significant challenges that smart grid networks face is
cyber-security. Several studies have been conducted to highlight those security
challenges. However, the majority of these surveys classify attacks based on
the security requirements, confidentiality, integrity, and availability,
without taking into consideration the accountability requirement. In addition,
some of these surveys focused on the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol (TCP/IP) model, which does not differentiate between the application,
session, and presentation and the data link and physical layers of the Open
System Interconnection (OSI) model. In this survey paper, we provide a
classification of attacks based on the OSI model and discuss in more detail the
cyber-attacks that can target the different layers of smart grid networks
communication. We also propose new classifications for the detection and
countermeasure techniques and describe existing techniques under each category.
Finally, we discuss challenges and future research directions
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