Internet of Things-aided Smart Grid: Technologies, Architectures, Applications, Prototypes, and Future Research Directions

Traditional power grids are being transformed into Smart Grids (SGs) to address the issues in existing power system due to uni-directional information flow, energy wastage, growing energy demand, reliability and security. SGs offer bi-directional energy flow between service providers and consumers, involving power generation, transmission, distribution and utilization systems. SGs employ various devices for the monitoring, analysis and control of the grid, deployed at power plants, distribution centers and in consumers' premises in a very large number. Hence, an SG requires connectivity, automation and the tracking of such devices. This is achieved with the help of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT helps SG systems to support various network functions throughout the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy by incorporating IoT devices (such as sensors, actuators and smart meters), as well as by providing the connectivity, automation and tracking for such devices. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on IoT-aided SG systems, which includes the existing architectures, applications and prototypes of IoT-aided SG systems. This survey also highlights the open issues, challenges and future research directions for IoT-aided SG systems

A Practical Approach to Protect IoT Devices against Attacks and Compile Security Incident Datasets

open access articleThe Internet of Things (IoT) introduced the opportunity of remotely manipulating home appliances (such as heating systems, ovens, blinds, etc.) using computers and mobile devices. This idea fascinated people and originated a boom of IoT devices together with an increasing demand that was difficult to support. Many manufacturers quickly created hundreds of devices implementing functionalities but neglected some critical issues pertaining to device security. This oversight gave rise to the current situation where thousands of devices remain unpatched having many security issues that manufacturers cannot address after the devices have been produced and deployed. This article presents our novel research protecting IOT devices using Berkeley Packet Filters (BPFs) and evaluates our findings with the aid of our Filter.tlk tool, which is able to facilitate the development of BPF expressions that can be executed by GNU/Linux systems with a low impact on network packet throughput