4,472 research outputs found
On the Control of Microgrids Against Cyber-Attacks: A Review of Methods and Applications
Nowadays, the use of renewable generations, energy storage systems (ESSs) and microgrids (MGs) has been developed due to better controllability of distributed energy resources (DERs) as well as their cost-effective and emission-aware operation. The development of MGs as well as the use of hierarchical control has led to data transmission in the communication platform. As a result, the expansion of communication infrastructure has made MGs as cyber-physical systems (CPSs) vulnerable to cyber-attacks (CAs). Accordingly, prevention, detection and isolation of CAs during proper control of MGs is essential. In this paper, a comprehensive review on the control strategies of microgrids against CAs and its defense mechanisms has been done. The general structure of the paper is as follows: firstly, MGs operational conditions, i.e., the secure or insecure mode of the physical and cyber layers are investigated and the appropriate control to return to a safer mode are presented. Then, the common MGs communication system is described which is generally used for multi-agent systems (MASs). Also, classification of CAs in MGs has been reviewed. Afterwards, a comprehensive survey of available researches in the field of prevention, detection and isolation of CA and MG control against CA are summarized. Finally, future trends in this context are clarified
Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey
The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to
ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability
issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid
(SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical
power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side
management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will
bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system.
For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time
consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built
on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG
systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue.
Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the
communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey
on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of
SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case
studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for
SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes
applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and
future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte
Cyber Attack Challenges and Resilience for Smart Grids
Date of Acceptance: 31/08/2015Peer reviewedPostprin
Integration of Data Driven Technologies in Smart Grids for Resilient and Sustainable Smart Cities: A Comprehensive Review
A modern-day society demands resilient, reliable, and smart urban
infrastructure for effective and in telligent operations and deployment.
However, unexpected, high-impact, and low-probability events such as
earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and hurricanes make the design of such robust
infrastructure more complex. As a result of such events, a power system
infrastructure can be severely affected, leading to unprecedented events, such
as blackouts. Nevertheless, the integration of smart grids into the existing
framework of smart cities adds to their resilience. Therefore, designing a
resilient and reliable power system network is an inevitable requirement of
modern smart city infras tructure. With the deployment of the Internet of
Things (IoT), smart cities infrastructures have taken a transformational turn
towards introducing technologies that do not only provide ease and comfort to
the citizens but are also feasible in terms of sustainability and
dependability. This paper presents a holistic view of a resilient and
sustainable smart city architecture that utilizes IoT, big data analytics,
unmanned aerial vehicles, and smart grids through intelligent integration of
renew able energy resources. In addition, the impact of disasters on the power
system infrastructure is investigated and different types of optimization
techniques that can be used to sustain the power flow in the network during
disturbances are compared and analyzed. Furthermore, a comparative review
analysis of different data-driven machine learning techniques for sustainable
smart cities is performed along with the discussion on open research issues and
challenges
Robust and cheating-resilient power auctioning on Resource Constrained Smart Micro-Grids
The principle of Continuous Double Auctioning (CDA) is known to provide an efficient way of matching supply and demand among distributed selfish participants with limited information. However, the literature indicates that the classic CDA algorithms developed for grid-like applications are centralised and insensitive to the processing resources capacity, which poses a hindrance for their application on resource constrained, smart micro-grids (RCSMG). A RCSMG loosely describes a micro-grid with distributed generators and demand controlled by selfish participants with limited information, power storage capacity and low literacy, communicate over an unreliable infrastructure burdened by limited bandwidth and low computational power of devices. In this thesis, we design and evaluate a CDA algorithm for power allocation in a RCSMG. Specifically, we offer the following contributions towards power auctioning on RCSMGs. First, we extend the original CDA scheme to enable decentralised auctioning. We do this by integrating a token-based, mutual-exclusion (MUTEX) distributive primitive, that ensures the CDA operates at a reasonably efficient time and message complexity of O(N) and O(logN) respectively, per critical section invocation (auction market execution). Our CDA algorithm scales better and avoids the single point of failure problem associated with centralised CDAs (which could be used to adversarially provoke a break-down of the grid marketing mechanism). In addition, the decentralised approach in our algorithm can help eliminate privacy and security concerns associated with centralised CDAs. Second, to handle CDA performance issues due to malfunctioning devices on an unreliable network (such as a lossy network), we extend our proposed CDA scheme to ensure robustness to failure. Using node redundancy, we modify the MUTEX protocol supporting our CDA algorithm to handle fail-stop and some Byzantine type faults of sites. This yields a time complexity of O(N), where N is number of cluster-head nodes; and message complexity of O((logN)+W) time, where W is the number of check-pointing messages. These results indicate that it is possible to add fault tolerance to a decentralised CDA, which guarantees continued participation in the auction while retaining reasonable performance overheads. In addition, we propose a decentralised consumption scheduling scheme that complements the auctioning scheme in guaranteeing successful power allocation within the RCSMG. Third, since grid participants are self-interested we must consider the issue of power theft that is provoked when participants cheat. We propose threat models centred on cheating attacks aimed at foiling the extended CDA scheme. More specifically, we focus on the Victim Strategy Downgrade; Collusion by Dynamic Strategy Change, Profiling with Market Prediction; and Strategy Manipulation cheating attacks, which are carried out by internal adversaries (auction participants). Internal adversaries are participants who want to get more benefits but have no interest in provoking a breakdown of the grid. However, their behaviour is dangerous because it could result in a breakdown of the grid. Fourth, to mitigate these cheating attacks, we propose an exception handling (EH) scheme, where sentinel agents use allocative efficiency and message overheads to detect and mitigate cheating forms. Sentinel agents are tasked to monitor trading agents to detect cheating and reprimand the misbehaving participant. Overall, message complexity expected in light demand is O(nLogN). The detection and resolution algorithm is expected to run in linear time complexity O(M). Overall, the main aim of our study is achieved by designing a resilient and cheating-free CDA algorithm that is scalable and performs well on resource constrained micro-grids. With the growing popularity of the CDA and its resource allocation applications, specifically to low resourced micro-grids, this thesis highlights further avenues for future research. First, we intend to extend the decentralised CDA algorithm to allow for participants’ mobile phones to connect (reconnect) at different shared smart meters. Such mobility should guarantee the desired CDA properties, the reliability and adequate security. Secondly, we seek to develop a simulation of the decentralised CDA based on the formal proofs presented in this thesis. Such a simulation platform can be used for future studies that involve decentralised CDAs. Third, we seek to find an optimal and efficient way in which the decentralised CDA and the scheduling algorithm can be integrated and deployed in a low resourced, smart micro-grid. Such an integration is important for system developers interested in exploiting the benefits of the two schemes while maintaining system efficiency. Forth, we aim to improve on the cheating detection and mitigation mechanism by developing an intrusion tolerance protocol. Such a scheme will allow continued auctioning in the presence of cheating attacks while incurring low performance overheads for applicability in a RCSMG
Attack Resilience and Recovery using Physical Challenge Response Authentication for Active Sensors Under Integrity Attacks
Embedded sensing systems are pervasively used in life- and security-critical
systems such as those found in airplanes, automobiles, and healthcare.
Traditional security mechanisms for these sensors focus on data encryption and
other post-processing techniques, but the sensors themselves often remain
vulnerable to attacks in the physical/analog domain. If an adversary
manipulates a physical/analog signal prior to digitization, no amount of
digital security mechanisms after the fact can help. Fortunately, nature
imposes fundamental constraints on how these analog signals can behave. This
work presents PyCRA, a physical challenge-response authentication scheme
designed to protect active sensing systems against physical attacks occurring
in the analog domain. PyCRA provides security for active sensors by continually
challenging the surrounding environment via random but deliberate physical
probes. By analyzing the responses to these probes, and by using the fact that
the adversary cannot change the underlying laws of physics, we provide an
authentication mechanism that not only detects malicious attacks but provides
resilience against them. We demonstrate the effectiveness of PyCRA through
several case studies using two sensing systems: (1) magnetic sensors like those
found wheel speed sensors in robotics and automotive, and (2) commercial RFID
tags used in many security-critical applications. Finally, we outline methods
and theoretical proofs for further enhancing the resilience of PyCRA to active
attacks by means of a confusion phase---a period of low signal to noise ratio
that makes it more difficult for an attacker to correctly identify and respond
to PyCRA's physical challenges. In doing so, we evaluate both the robustness
and the limitations of PyCRA, concluding by outlining practical considerations
as well as further applications for the proposed authentication mechanism.Comment: Shorter version appeared in ACM ACM Conference on Computer and
Communications (CCS) 201
- …