Biblio

The rapid growth of population and industrialization has given rise to the way for the use of technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT). Innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) carries with it many challenges to our privacy's expectations and security. In Smart environments there are uses of security devices and smart appliances, sensors and energy meters. New requirements in security and privacy are driven by the massive growth of devices numbers that are connected to IoT which increases concerns in security and privacy. The most ubiquitous threats to the security of the smart grids (SG) ascended from infrastructural physical damages, destroying data, malwares, DoS, and intrusions. Intrusion detection comprehends illegitimate access to information and attacks which creates physical disruption in the availability of servers. This work proposes an intrusion detection system using data mining techniques for intrusion detection in smart grid environment. The results showed that the proposed random forest method with a total classification accuracy of 98.94 %, F-measure of 0.989, area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.999, and kappa value of 0.9865 outperforms over other classification methods. In addition, the feasibility of our method has been successfully demonstrated by comparing other classification techniques such as ANN, k-NN, SVM and Rotation Forest.

Collaborative smart services provide functionalities which exploit data collected from different sources to provide benefits to a community of users. Such data, however, might be privacy sensitive and their disclosure has to be avoided. In this paper, we present a distributed multi-tier framework intended for smart-environment management, based on usage control for policy evaluation and enforcement on devices belonging to different collaborating entities. The proposed framework exploits secure multi-party computation to evaluate policy conditions without disclosing actual value of evaluated attributes, to preserve privacy. As reference example, a smart-grid use case is presented.

In rural/remote areas, resource constrained smart micro-grid (RCSMG) architectures can offer a cost-effective power management and supply alternative to national power grid connections. RCSMG architectures handle communications over distributed lossy networks to minimize operation costs. However, the unreliable nature of lossy networks makes privacy an important consideration. Existing anonymisation works on data perturbation work mainly by distortion with additive noise. Apply these solutions to RCSMGs is problematic, because deliberate noise additions must be distinguishable both from system and adversarial generated noise. In this paper, we present a brief survey of privacy risks in RCSMGs centered on inference, and propose a method of mitigating these risks. The lesson here is that while RCSMGs give users more control over power management and distribution, good anonymisation is essential to protecting personal information on RCSMGs.

The increasing deployment of smart meters at individual households has significantly improved people's experience in electricity bill payments and energy savings. It is, however, still challenging to guarantee the accurate detection of attacked meters' behaviors as well as the effective preservation of users'privacy information. In addition, rare existing research studies jointly consider both these two aspects. In this paper, we propose a Privacy-Preserving energy Theft Detection scheme (PPTD) to address the energy theft behaviors and information privacy issues in smart grid. Specifically, we use a recursive filter based on state estimation to estimate the user's energy consumption, and detect the abnormal data. During data transmission, we use the lightweight NTRU algorithm to encrypt the user's data to achieve privacy preservation. Security analysis demonstrates that in the PPTD scheme, only authorized units can transmit/receive data, and data privacy are also preserved. The performance evaluation results illustrate that our PPTD scheme can significantly reduce the communication and computation costs, and effectively detect abnormal users.

In the smart grid, residents' electricity usage needs to be periodically measured and reported for the purpose of better energy management. At the same time, real-time collection of residents' electricity consumption may unfavorably incur privacy leakage, which has motivated the research on privacy-preserving aggregation of electricity readings. Most previous studies either rely on a trusted third party (TTP) or suffer from expensive computation. In this paper, we first reveal the privacy flaws of a very recent scheme pursing privacy preservation without relying on the TTP. By presenting concrete attacks, we show that this scheme has failed to meet the design goals. Then, for better privacy protection, we construct a new scheme called PMDA, which utilizes Shamir's secret sharing to allow smart meters to negotiate aggregation parameters in the absence of a TTP. Using only lightweight cryptography, PMDA efficiently supports multi-functional aggregation of the electricity readings, and simultaneously preserves residents' privacy. Theoretical analysis is provided with regard to PMDA's security and efficiency. Moreover, experimental data obtained from a prototype indicates that our proposal is efficient and feasible for practical deployment.

With the advancement of Technology, the existing electric grids are shifting towards smart grid. The smart grids are meant to be effective in power management, secure and safe in communication and more importantly, it is favourable to the environment. The smart grid is having huge architecture it includes various stakeholders that encounter challenges in the name of authorisation and authentication. The smart grid has another important issue to deal with that is securing the communication from varieties of cyber-attacks. In this paper, we first discussed about the challenges in the smart grid data communication and later we surveyed the existing cryptographic algorithm and presented comparative work on certain factors for existing working cryptographic algorithms This work gives insight conclusion to improve the working scheme for data security and Privacy preservation of customer who is one of the stack holders. Finally, with the comparative work, we suggest a direction of future work on improvement of working algorithms for secure and safe data communication in a smart grid.

Implementation of self-healing control system in smart grid is a persisting challenge. Self-Healing control strategy is the important guarantee to implement the smart grid. In addition, it is the support of achieving the secure operation, improving the reliability and security of distribution grid, and realizing the smart distribution grid. Although self-healing control system concept is presented in smart grid context, but the complexity of distribution network structure recommended to choose advanced control and protection system using a self-healing, this system must be able to heal any disturbance in the distribution system of smart grid to improve efficiency, resiliency, continuity, and reliability of the smart grid. This review focuses mostly on the key technology of self-healing control, gives an insight into the role of self-healing in distribution system advantages, study challenges and opportunities in the prospect of utilities. The main contribution of this paper is demonstrating proposed architecture, control strategy for self-healing control system includes fault detection, fault localization, faulted area isolation, and power restoration in the electrical distribution system.

Fault Location, Isolation and System Restoration (FLISR) mechanisms allow for rapid restoration of power to customers that are not directly implicated by distribution network failures. However, depending on where the logic for the FLISR system is located, deployment may have security implications for the distribution network. This paper discusses alternative FLISR placements in terms of cyber security considerations, concluding that there is a case for both local and centralized FLISR solutions.

To ensure reliable and predictable service in the electrical grid it is important to gauge the level of trust present within critical components and substations. Although trust throughout a smart grid is temporal and dynamically varies according to measured states, it is possible to accurately formulate communications and service level strategies based on such trust measurements. Utilizing an effective set of machine learning and statistical methods, it is shown that establishment of trust levels between substations using behavioral pattern analysis is possible. It is also shown that the establishment of such trust can facilitate simple secure communications routing between substations.

Technological developments in the energy sector while offering new business insights, also produces complex data. In this study, the relationship between smart grid and big data approaches have been investigated. After analyzing where the big data techniques and technologies are used in which areas of smart grid systems, the big data technologies used to detect attacks on smart grids have been focused on. Big data analytics produces efficient solutions, but it is more critical to choose which algorithm and metric. For this reason, an application prototype has been proposed using big data approaches to detect attacks on smart grids. The algorithms with high accuracy were determined as 92% with Random Forest and 87% with Decision Tree.

Combining conventional power networks and information communication technologies forms smart grid concept. Researches on the evolution of conventional power grid system into smart grid continue thanks to the development of communication and information technologies hopefully. Testing of smart grid systems is usually performed in simulation environments. However, achieving more effective real-world implementations, a smart grid application needs a real-world test environment, called testbed. Smart grid, which is the combination of conventional electricity line with information communication technologies, is vulnerable to cyber-attacks and this is a key challenge improving the smart grid. The vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks in smart grid arise from information communication technologies' nature inherently. Testbeds, which cyber-security researches and studies can be performed, are needed to find effective solutions against cyber-attacks capabilities in smart grid practices. In this paper, an evaluation of existing smart grid testbeds with the capability of cyber security is presented. First, background, domains, research areas and security issues in smart grid are introduced briefly. Then smart grid testbeds and features are explained. Also, existing security-oriented testbeds and cyber-attack testing capabilities of testbeds are evaluated. Finally, we conclude the study and give some recommendations for security-oriented testbed implementations.

This paper presents a review on how to benefit from software-defined networking (SDN) to enhance smart grid security. For this purpose, the attacks threatening traditional smart grid systems are classified according to availability, integrity, and confidentiality, which are the main cyber-security objectives. The traditional smart grid architecture is redefined with SDN and a conceptual model for SDN-based smart grid systems is proposed. SDN based solutions to the mentioned security threats are also classified and evaluated. Our conclusions suggest that SDN helps to improve smart grid security by providing real-time monitoring, programmability, wide-area security management, fast recovery from failures, distributed security and smart decision making based on big data analytics.

Smart grid utilizes cloud service to realize reliable, efficient, secured, and cost-effective power management, but there are a number of security risks in the cloud service of smart grid. The security risks are particularly problematic to operators of power information infrastructure who want to leverage the benefits of cloud. In this paper, security risk of cloud service in the smart grid are categorized and analyzed characteristics, and multi-layered index system of general technical risks is established, which applies to different patterns of cloud service. Cloud service risk of smart grid can evaluate according indexes.

The rapid evolution of the power grid into a smart one calls for innovative and compelling means to experiment with the upcoming expansions, and analyze their behavioral response under normal circumstances and when targeted by attacks. Such analysis is fundamental to setting up solid foundations for the smart grid. Smart grid Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) co-simulation environments serve as a key approach to answer questions on the systems components, functionality, security concerns along with analysis of the system outcome and expected behavior. In this paper, we introduce a HIL co-simulation framework capable of simulating the smart grid actions and responses to attacks targeting its power and communication components. Our testbed is equipped with a real-time power grid simulator, and an associated OpenStack-based communication network. Through the utilized communication network, we can emulate a multitude of attacks targeting the power system, and evaluating the grid response to those attacks. Moreover, we present different illustrative cyber attacks use cases, and analyze the smart grid behavior in the presence of those attacks.

The communication security issue brought by Smart Grid is of great importance and should not be ignored in backbone optical networks. With the aim to solve this problem, this paper firstly conducts deep analysis into the security challenge of optical network under smart power grid environment and proposes a so-called lightweight security signaling mechanism of multi-domain optical network for Energy Internet. The proposed scheme makes full advantage of current signaling protocol with some necessary extensions and security improvement. Thus, this lightweight security signaling protocol is designed to make sure the end-to-end trusted connection. Under the multi-domain communication services of smart power grid, evaluation simulation for the signaling interaction is conducted. Simulation results show that this proposed approach can greatly improve the security level of large-scale multi-domain optical network for smart power grid with better performance in term of connection success rate performance.

Power systems domain has generally been very conservative in terms of conducting digital forensic investigations, especially so since the advent of smart grids. This lack of research due to a multitude of challenges has resulted in absence of knowledge base and resources to facilitate such an investigation. Digitalization in the form of smart grids is upon us but in case of cyber-attacks, attribution to such attacks is challenging and difficult if not impossible. In this research, we have identified digital forensic artifacts resulting from a cyber-attack on Wide Area Monitoring, Protection and Control (WAMPAC) systems, which will help an investigator attribute an attack using the identified evidences. The research also shows the usage of sandboxing for digital forensics along with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) setup. This is first of its kind effort to identify and acquire all the digital forensic evidences for WAMPAC systems which will ultimately help in building a body of knowledge and taxonomy for power system forensics.

The existing radial topology makes the power system less reliable since any part in the system failure will disrupt electrical power delivery in the network. The increasing security concerns, electrical energy theft, and present advancement in Information and Communication Technologies are some factors that led to modernization of power system. In a smart grid, a network of smart sensors offers numerous opportunities that may include monitoring of power, consumer-side energy management, synchronization of dispersed power storage, and integrating sources of renewable energy. Smart sensor networks are low cost and are ease to deploy hence they are favorable contestants for deployment smart power grids at a larger scale. These networks will result in a colossal volume of dissimilar range of data that require an efficient processing and analyzing process in order to realize an efficient smart grid. The existing technology can be used to collect data but dealing with the collected information proficiently as well as mining valuable material out of it remains challenging. The paper investigates communication technologies that maybe deployed in a smart grid. In this paper simulations results for the Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel are illustrated. We propose a model and a communication network domain riding on the power system domain. The model was interrogated by simulation in MATLAB.

This paper proposes a game-theoretic approach to analyze the interactions between an attacker and a defender in a cyber-physical system (CPS) and develops effective defense strategies. In a CPS, the attacker launches cyber attacks on a number of nodes in the cyber layer, trying to maximize the potential damage to the underlying physical system while the system operator seeks to defend several nodes in the cyber layer to minimize the physical damage. Given that CPS attacking and defending is often a continual process, a zero-sum Markov game is proposed in this paper to model these interactions subject to underlying uncertainties of real-world events and actions. A novel model is also proposed in this paper to characterize the interdependence between the cyber layer and the physical layer in a CPS and quantify the impact of the cyber attack on the physical damage in the proposed game. To find the Nash equilibrium of the Markov game, we design an efficient algorithm based on value iteration. The proposed general approach is then applied to study the wide-area monitoring and protection issue in smart grid. Extensive simulations are conducted based on real-world data, and results show the effectiveness of the defending strategies derived from the proposed approach.

With the rapid development of the smart grid, a large number of intelligent sensors and meters have been introduced in distribution network, which will inevitably increase the integration of physical networks and cyber networks, and bring potential security threats to the operating system. In this paper, the functions of the information system on distribution network are described when cyber attacks appear at the intelligent electronic devices (lED) or at the distribution main station. The effect analysis of the distribution network under normal operating condition or in the fault recovery process is carried out, and the reliability assessment model of the distribution network considering cyber attacks is constructed. Finally, the IEEE-33-bus distribution system is taken as a test system to presented the evaluation process based on the proposed model.

Smart Grid (SG) technology has been developing for years, which facilitates users with portable access to power through being applied in numerous application scenarios, one of which is the electric vehicle charging. In order to ensure the security of the charging process, users need authenticating with the smart meter for the subsequent communication. Although there are many researches in this field, few of which have endeavored to protect the anonymity and the untraceability of users during the authentication. Further, some studies consider the problem of user anonymity, but they are non-light-weight protocols, even some can not assure any fairness in key agreement. In this paper, we first points out that existing authentication schemes for Smart Grid are neither lack of critical security nor short of important property such as untraceability, then we propose a new two-factor lightweight user authentication scheme based on password and biometric. The authentication process of the proposed scheme includes four message exchanges among the user mobile, smart meter and the cloud server, and then a security one-time session key is generated for the followed communication process. Moreover, the scheme has some new features, such as the protection of the user's anonymity and untraceability. Security analysis shows that our proposed scheme can resist various well-known attacks and the performance analysis shows that compared to other three schemes, our scheme is more lightweight, secure and efficient.

In this paper, we present a work-in-progress approach to detect integrity attacks to Smart Grids by analyzing the readings from smart meters. Our approach is based on process mining and time-evolving graphs. In particular, process mining is used to discover graphs, from the dataset collecting the readings over a time period, that represent the behaviour of a customer. The time-evolving graphs are then compared in order to detect anomalous behavior of a customer. To evaluate the feasibility of our approach, we have conducted preliminary experiments by using the dataset provided by the Ireland's Commission for Energy Regulation (CER).

Electronic power grid is a distributed network used for transferring electricity and power from power plants to consumers. Based on sensor readings and control system signals, power grid states are measured and estimated. As a result, most conventional attacks, such as denial-of-service attacks and random attacks, could be found by using the Kalman filter. However, false data injection attacks are designed against state estimation models. Currently, distributed Kalman filtering is proved effective in sensor networks for detection and estimation problems. Since meters are distributed in smart power grids, distributed estimation models can be used. Thus in this paper, we propose a diffusion Kalman filter for the power grid to have a good performance in estimating models and to effectively detect false data injection attacks.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have been widely adopted to monitor various ambient conditions including critical infrastructures. Since power grid is considered as a critical infrastructure, and the smart grid has appeared as a viable technology to introduce more reliability, efficiency, controllability, and safety to the traditional power grid, WSNs have been envisioned as potential tools to monitor the smart grid. The motivation behind smart grid monitoring is to improve its emergency preparedness and resilience. Despite their effectiveness in monitoring critical infrastructures, WSNs also introduce various security vulnerabilities due to their open nature and unreliable wireless links. In this paper, we focus on the, Black-Hole (B-H) attack. To cope with this, we propose a hierarchical trust-based WSN monitoring model for the smart grid equipment in order to detect the B-H attacks. Malicious nodes have been detected by testing the trade-off between trust and dropped packet ratios for each Cluster Head (CH). We select different thresholds for the Packets Dropped Ratio (PDR) in order to test the network behaviour with them. We set four different thresholds (20%, 30%, 40%, and 50%). Threshold of 50% has been shown to reach the system stability in early periods with the least number of re-clustering operations.

Gaussian random attacks that jointly minimize the amount of information obtained by the operator from the grid and the probability of attack detection are presented. The construction of the attack is posed as an optimization problem with a utility function that captures two effects: firstly, minimizing the mutual information between the measurements and the state variables; secondly, minimizing the probability of attack detection via the Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence between the distribution of the measurements with an attack and the distribution of the measurements without an attack. Additionally, a lower bound on the utility function achieved by the attacks constructed with imperfect knowledge of the second order statistics of the state variables is obtained. The performance of the attack construction using the sample covariance matrix of the state variables is numerically evaluated. The above results are tested in the IEEE 30-Bus test system.

Quantifying vulnerability and security levels for smart grid diversified link of networks have been a challenging task for a long period of time. Security experts and network administrators used to act based on their proficiencies and practices to mitigate network attacks rather than objective metrics and models. This paper uses the Markov Chain Model [1] to evaluate quantitatively the vulnerabilities associated to the 802.11 Wi-Fi network in a smart grid. Administrator can now assess the level of severity of potential attacks based on determining the probability density of the successive states and thus, providing the corresponding security measures. This model is based on the observed vulnerabilities provided by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database explored by MITRE [2] to calculate the Markov processes (states) transitions probabilities and thus, deducing the vulnerability level of the entire attack paths in an attack graph. Cumulative probabilities referring to high vulnerability level in a specific attack path will lead the system administrator to apply appropriate security measures a priori to potential attacks occurrence.