Multipath Routing of Fragmented Data Transfer in a Smart Grid Environment

The purpose of this paper is to do a general survey on the existing communication modes inside a smart grid, the existing security loopholes and their countermeasures. Then we suggest a detailed countermeasure, building upon the Jigsaw based secure data transfer [8] for enhanced security of the data flow inside the communication system of a smart grid. The paper has been written without the consideration of any factor of inoperability between the various security techniques inside a smart gridComment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Security Technology by Using Firewall for Smart Grid

Due to the increasing development of computer systems and information networks, power grids should change extensively too. Nowadays, substantial movement has begun to implement the Smart Grid industry around the world. Since with the creation of smart electricity grids, it is possible to access the internal network from the external spaces, it is also necessary to protect information and data against unauthorized access. Therefore, a firewall should be used for information security. The firewall based on existing security regulations, decides which data is incoming to the network or going out of the network. Considering the discussions of passive defense topics at the national level and also the high importance of information security in Smart Grids, in this paper, in addition to examining the Firewalls, its advantages and disadvantages are also stated. Although the firewall has a major role in establishing security, and its installation and appropriate configuration can only be one of the primary activities in this field, we should also take advantage of other security mechanisms to enhance the security of the Smart Grid

Security Technology by using Firewall for Smart Grid

Due to the increasing development of computer systems and information networks, power grids should change extensively too. Nowadays, substantial movement has begun to implement the Smart Grid industry around the world. Since with the creation of smart electricity grids, it is possible to access the internal network from the external spaces, it is also necessary to protect information and data against unauthorized access. Therefore, a firewall should be used for information security. The firewall based on existing security regulations, decides which data is incoming to the network or going out of the network. Considering the discussions of passive defense topics at the national level and also the high importance of information security in Smart Grids, in this paper, in addition to examining the Firewalls, its advantages and disadvantages are also stated. Although the firewall has a major role in establishing security, and its installation and appropriate configuration can only be one of the primary activities in this field, we should also take advantage of other security mechanisms to enhance the security of the Smart Grid

Communication and Cyber Security issues in Smart Grid

Smart Grid is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabled Power grid. It is efficient, secure, reliable and self-healing power grid. Integration of micro grids, electric vehicles and other utilities make it more interesting. The deregulation of electricity sector has necessitated the use of many advanced software and embedded technologies to handle the size and complexity of power network. Smart grid needs to be supported by efficient and secure communication architecture design and implementation. At the same time it is necessary to ensure the security and privacy of data and information moving or stored in the smart grid system to have near 100% uptime of the power grid. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the various communication and cyber security issues involved with the successful operation of Smart Grid

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

AMI threats, intrusion detection requirements and deployment recommendations

Abstract—Advanced Metering Infrastructures (AMI) facilitate bidirectional communication between smart meters and utilities, allowing information about consumption, outages, and electricity rates to be shared reliably and efficiently. However, the numerous smart meters being connected through mesh networks open new opportunities for attackers to interfere with communications and compromise utilities ’ assets or steal customers ’ private information. The goal of this paper is to survey the various threats facing AMIs and the common attack techniques used to realize them in order to identify and understand the requirements for a comprehensive intrusion detection solution. The threat analysis leads to an extensive “attack tree ” that captures the attackers’ key objectives (e.g., energy theft) and the individual attack steps (e.g., eavesdropping on the network) that would be involved in achieving them. With reference to the attack tree, we show the type of information that would be required to effectively detect attacks. We also suggest that the widest coverage in monitoring the attacks can be provided by a hybrid sensing infrastructure that uses both a centralized intrusion detection system and embedded meter sensors. I

Cooperative Communications in Smart Grid Networks

The conventional grid system is facing great challenges due to the fast growing electricity demand throughout the world. The smart grid has emerged as the next generation of grid power systems, aimed at providing secure, reliable and low cost power generation, distribution and consumption intelligently. The smart grid communication system within the smart grid network is of fundamental importance to support data transfer and information exchange within the smart grid system. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has identified wireless communications as an important networking technology to be employed in power systems. The reliability of the data transmission is essential for the smart grid system to achieve high accuracy for the power generation, distribution and consumption. In this thesis, we investigate cooperative communications to improve transmission reliability in smart grid networks. Although many issues within cooperative communication have already been addressed, there is a lack of research efforts on cooperative communication for the wireless smart grid communication system which has its own network features and different transmission requirements. In our research, the smart grid communication networks were studied, and cooperative communications in smart grid networks were analysed. The research work mainly focuses on three problems: the application of cooperative relay communications to modern smart grid communication networks, the cooperative relay-based network development strategy, and the optimization of cooperative relay communication for smart grids. For the first problem, the application of cooperative relay communication to a home area network (HAN) of smart grid system is presented. The wireless transmission reliability is identified as the issue of most concern in wireless smart grid networks. We model the smart grid HAN as a wireless mesh network that deploys cooperative relay communication to enhance the transmission reliability. We apply cooperative relay communication to provide a user equipment selection scheme to effectively improve the transmission quality between the electricity equipment and the smart meter. For the second problem, we address the network design and planning problem in the smart grid HAN. The outage performance of direct transmission and cooperative transmission was analysed. Based on the reliability performance metric that we have defined, we propose a HAN deployment strategy to improve the reliability of the transmission links. The proposed HAN deployment strategy is tested in a home environment. The smart meter location optimization problem has also been identified and solved. The simulation results show that our proposed network deployment strategy can guarantee high reliability for smart grid communications in home area networks. For the third problem, the research focuses on the optimization of the cooperative relay transmission regarding the power allocation and relay selection in the neighbourhood area network (NAN) of the smart grid system. Owing to the complexity of the joint optimization problem, reduced-complexity algorithms have been proposed to minimize the transmission power, at the same time, guarantee the link reliability of the cooperative communications. The optimization problem of power allocation and relay selection is formulated and treated as a combinatorial optimization problem. Two sub-optimal solutions that simplify the optimization process are devised. Based on the solutions, two different algorithms are proposed to solve the optimization problem with reduced complexity. The simulation results demonstrate that both two algorithms have good performance on minimizing the total transmission power while guaranteeing the transmission reliability for the wireless smart grid communication system. In this thesis, we consider cooperative communications in a smart grid scenario. We minimize the outage probability and thus improve the reliability of the communications taking place in the smart grid by considering the optimization problem of power control, relay selection and the network deployment problem. Although similar problems might have been well investigated in conventional wireless networks, such as the cellular network, little research has been conducted in smart grid communications. We apply new optimization techniques and propose solutions for these optimization problems specifically tailored for smart grid communications. We demonstrate that, compared to naively applying the algorithms suitable for conventional communications to the smart gird scenario, our proposed algorithm significantly improves the performance of smart grid communications. Finally, we note that, in future work, it will be possible to consider more complex smart grid communications system models. For example, it is worthwhile considering hetregeneous smart communications by combining HAN and wide area networks (WAN). In addition, instead of assuming that all communications have the equal priority, as in this thesis, more comprehensive analysis of the priority of the smart grid communication can be applied to the research

Enabling sustainable power distribution networks by using smart grid communications

Smart grid modernization enables integration of computing, information and communications capabilities into the legacy electric power grid system, especially the low voltage distribution networks where various consumers are located. The evolutionary paradigm has initiated worldwide deployment of an enormous number of smart meters as well as renewable energy sources at end-user levels. The future distribution networks as part of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) will involve decentralized power control operations under associated smart grid communications networks. This dissertation addresses three potential problems anticipated in the future distribution networks of smart grid: 1) local power congestion due to power surpluses produced by PV solar units in a neighborhood that demands disconnection/reconnection mechanisms to alleviate power overflow, 2) power balance associated with renewable energy utilization as well as data traffic across a multi-layered distribution network that requires decentralized designs to facilitate power control as well as communications, and 3) a breach of data integrity attributed to a typical false data injection attack in a smart metering network that calls for a hybrid intrusion detection system to detect anomalous/malicious activities. In the first problem, a model for the disconnection process via smart metering communications between smart meters and the utility control center is proposed. By modeling the power surplus congestion issue as a knapsack problem, greedy solutions for solving such problem are proposed. Simulation results and analysis show that computation time and data traffic under a disconnection stage in the network can be reduced. In the second problem, autonomous distribution networks are designed that take scalability into account by dividing the legacy distribution network into a set of subnetworks. A power-control method is proposed to tackle the power flow and power balance issues. Meanwhile, an overlay multi-tier communications infrastructure for the underlying power network is proposed to analyze the traffic of data information and control messages required for the associated power flow operations. Simulation results and analysis show that utilization of renewable energy production can be improved, and at the same time data traffic reduction under decentralized operations can be achieved as compared to legacy centralized management. In the third problem, an attack model is proposed that aims to minimize the number of compromised meters subject to the equality of an aggregated power load in order to bypass detection under the conventionally radial tree-like distribution network. A hybrid anomaly detection framework is developed, which incorporates the proposed grid sensor placement algorithm with the observability attribute. Simulation results and analysis show that the network observability as well as detection accuracy can be improved by utilizing grid-placed sensors. Conclusively, a number of future works have also been identified to furthering the associated problems and proposed solutions