Resiliency of Smart Power Meters to Common Security Attacks

AbstractThe development of Smart Grid power systems is gaining momentum in many countries leading to massive deployment of smart meters to realize the envisioned benefits. However, there are several concerns among the consumer communities and the service providers with respect to information security when it comes to the deployment of smart meters. This paper attempts to address the main challenge related to smart grid information security by examining the resiliency of smart meters to security threats and attacks. Several common information security attacks are being used to study their impact on the performance of smart meters in a controlled laboratory environment. Results obtained showed drastic effect on the functionality of smart meters and their associated data gathering servers

Uneven key pre-distribution scheme for multi-phase wireless sensor networks

In multi-phase Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), sensor nodes are redeployed periodically to replace nodes whose batteries are depleted. In order to keep the network resilient against node capture attacks across different deployment epochs, called generations, it is necessary to refresh the key pools from which cryptographic keys are distributed. In this paper, we propose Uneven Key Pre-distribution (UKP) scheme that uses multiple different key pools at each generation. Our UKP scheme provides self healing that improves the resiliency of the network at a higher level as compared to an existing scheme in the literature. Moreover, our scheme provides perfect local and global connectivity. We conduct our simulations in mobile environment to see how our scheme performs under more realistic scenarios

Impact of Topology on Service Availability in a Smart Grid Advanced Metering Infrastructure

over the last decade, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have brought radical changes to the means and forms of communication for monitoring and control of a large number of applications including Smart Grid (SG). Traditional energy networks have been modernized to Smart Grids to boost the energy industry in the context of efficient and effective power management, performance, real-time control and information flow using two-way communication between utility provides and end-users. However, integrating two-way communication in smart grid comes at the cost of cyber security vulnerabilities and challenges. In the context of SG, node capture is a severe security threat due to the fact that a compromised node can significantly impact the operations and security of the SG network. In this paper, node compromise attack is explored on Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) with smart meters for Neighbor Area Networks (NANs) in star and mesh network topologies. Simulation of node compromise/failure for a SG network, using ZigBee nodes in simulation indicates that a partial mesh topology is more resilient to node capture attacks as compared to star topology. A larger number of nodes are reachable from the control center of the SG in a partial mesh topology compared to that in a star topology

Threats and challenges of smart grids deployments - a developing nations’ perspective

Considerable efforts in huge investments are being made to achieve a resilient Smart Grids (SGs) deployment for the improvement of power delivery scheme. Unsurprisingly, many developing nations are making slow progress to the achievement of this feat, which is set to revolutionize the power industry, own to several deployment and security issues. Studying these threats and challenges from both technical and non-technical view, this paper presents a highlight and assessment of each of the identified challenges. These challenges are assessed by exposing the security and deployment related threats while suggesting ways of tackling these challenges with prominence to developing nations. Although, a brief highlight, this review will help key actors in the region to identify the related challenges and it’s a guide to sustainable deployments of SGs in developing nations