Biblio

Advancing network technologies allows the setup of two-way communication links between energy providers and consumers. These developing technologies aim to enhance grid reliability and energy efficiency in smart grids. To achieve this goal, energy usage reports from consumers are required to be both trustworthy and confidential. In this paper, we construct a new data aggregation scheme in smart grids based on a homomorphic encryption algorithm. In the constructed scheme, obedient consumers who follow the instruction can prove its ajustment using a range proof protocol. Additionally, we propose a new identity-based signature algorithm in order to ensure authentication and integrity of the constructed scheme. By using this signature algorithm, usage reports are verified in real time. Extensive simulations demonstrate that our scheme outperforms other data aggregation schemes.

Several operational and economic factors impact the patching decisions of critical infrastructures. The constraints imposed by such factors could prevent organizations from fully remedying all of the vulnerabilities that expose their (critical) assets to risk. Therefore, an involved decision maker (e.g. security officer) has to strategically decide on the allocation of possible remediation efforts towards minimizing the inherent security risk. This, however, involves the use of comparative judgments to prioritize risks and remediation actions. Throughout this work, the security risk is quantified using the security metric Time-To-Compromise (TTC). Our main contribution is to provide a generic TTC estimator to comparatively assess the security posture of computer networks taking into account interdependencies between the network components, different adversary skill levels, and characteristics of (known and zero-day) vulnerabilities. The presented estimator relies on a stochastic TTC model and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) techniques to account for the input data variability and inherent prediction uncertainties.