Biblio

SaaS is a cloud-based application service that allows users to use applications that work in a cloud environment. SaaS is a subscription type, and the service expenditure varies depending on the license, the number of users, and duration of use. For efficient network management, security and cost management, accurate detection of user behavior for SaaS applications is required. In this paper, we propose a rule-based traffic analysis method for the user behavior detection. We conduct comparative experiments with signature-based method by using the real SaaS application and demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

The attacker’s server plays an important role in sending attack orders and receiving stolen information, particularly in the more recent cyberattacks. Under these circumstances, it is important to use network-based signatures to block malicious communications in order to reduce the damage. However, in addition to blocking malicious communications, signatures are also required not to block benign communications during normal business operations. Therefore, the generation of signatures requires a high level of understanding of the business, and highly depends on individual skills. In addition, in actual operation, it is necessary to test whether the generated signatures do not interfere with benign communications, which results in high operational costs. In this paper, we propose SIGMA, a system that automatically generates signatures to block malicious communication without interfering with benign communication and then automatically evaluates the impact of the signatures. SIGMA automatically extracts the common parts of malware communication destinations by clustering them and generates multiple candidate signatures. After that, SIGMA automatically calculates the impact on normal communication based on business logs, etc., and presents the final signature to the analyst, which has the highest blockability of malicious communication and non-blockability of normal communication. Our objectives with this system are to reduce the human factor in generating the signatures, reduce the cost of the impact evaluation, and support the decision of whether to apply the signatures. In the preliminary evaluation, we showed that SIGMA can automatically generate a set of signatures that detect 100% of suspicious URLs with an over-detection rate of just 0.87%, using the results of 14,238 malware analyses and actual business logs. This result suggests that the cost for generation of signatures and the evaluation of their impact on business operations can be suppressed, which used to be a time-consuming and human-intensive process.

Aiming at the prevention of information security risk in protection and control of smart substation, a multi-level security defense method of substation based on data aggregation and convolution neural network (CNN) is proposed. Firstly, the intelligent electronic device(IED) uses "digital certificate + digital signature" for the first level of identity authentication, and uses UKey identification code for the second level of physical identity authentication; Secondly, the device group of the monitoring layer judges whether the data report is tampered during transmission according to the registration stage and its own ID information, and the device group aggregates the data using the credential information; Finally, the convolution decomposition technology and depth separable technology are combined, and the time factor is introduced to control the degree of data fusion and the number of input channels of the network, so that the network model can learn the original data and fused data at the same time. Simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively save communication overhead, ensure the reliable transmission of messages under normal and abnormal operation, and effectively improve the security defense ability of smart substation.

The concept of a microgrid has emerged as a promising solution for the management of local groups of electricity consumers and producers. The use of end-users' energy usage data can help in increasing efficient operation of a microgrid. However, existing data-aggregation schemes for a microgrid suffer different cyber attacks and do not provide high level of accuracy. This work aims at designing a privacy-preserving data-aggregation scheme for a microgrid of prosumers that achieves high level of accuracy, thereby benefiting to the management and control of a microgrid. First, a novel smart meter readings data protection mechanism is proposed to ensure privacy of prosumers by hiding the real energy usage data from other parties. Secondly, a blockchain-based data-aggregation scheme is proposed to ensure privacy of the end-users, while achieving high level of accuracy in terms of the aggregated data. The proposed data-aggregation scheme is evaluated using real smart meter readings data from 100 prosumers. The results show that the proposed scheme ensures prosumers' privacy and achieves high level of accuracy, while it is secure against eavesdropping and man-in-the-middle cyber attacks.

When applied to short-term energy consumption forecasting, the federated learning framework allows for the creation of a predictive model without sharing raw data. There is a limit to the accuracy achieved by standard federated learning due to the heterogeneity of the individual clients' data, especially in the case of electricity data, where prediction of peak demand is a challenge. A set of clustering techniques has been explored in the literature to improve prediction quality while maintaining user privacy. These studies have mainly been conducted using sets of clients with similar attributes that may not reflect real-world consumer diversity. This paper explores, implements and compares these clustering techniques for privacy-preserving load forecasting on a representative electricity consumption dataset. The experimental results demonstrate the effects of electricity consumption heterogeneity on federated forecasting and a non-representative sample's impact on load forecasting.

The vehicle-to-grid (V2G) network has a clear advantage in terms of economic benefits, and it has grabbed the interest of powergrid and electric vehicle (EV) consumers. Many V2G techniques, at present, for example, use bilinear pairing to execute the authentication scheme, which results in significant computational costs. Furthermore, in the existing V2G techniques, the system master key is issued independently by the third parties, it is vulnerable to leaking if the third party is compromised by an attacker. This paper presents an efficient and secure anonymous authentication scheme for V2G networks to overcome this issue we use a lightweight authentication system for electric vehicles and smart grids. In the proposed technique, the keys are generated by the trusted authority after the successful registration of EVs in the trusted authority and the dispatching center. The suggested scheme not only enhances the verification performance of V2G networks and also protects against inbuilt hackers.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading is one of the promising approaches for implementing decentralized electricity market paradigms. In the P2P trading, each actor negotiates directly with a set of trading partners. Since the physical network or grid is used for energy transfer, power losses are inevitable, and grid-related costs always occur during the P2P trading. A proper market clearing mechanism is required for the P2P energy trading between different producers and consumers. This paper proposes a decentralized market clearing mechanism for the P2P energy trading considering the privacy of the agents, power losses as well as the utilization fees for using the third party owned network. Grid-related costs in the P2P energy trading are considered by calculating the network utilization fees using an electrical distance approach. The simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed decentralized approach for market clearing in P2P energy trading.

Smart metering is a mechanism through which fine-grained electricity usage data of consumers is collected periodically in a smart grid. However, a growing concern in this regard is that the leakage of consumers' consumption data may reveal their daily life patterns as the state-of-the-art metering strategies lack adequate security and privacy measures. Many proposed solutions have demonstrated how the aggregated metering information can be transformed to obscure individual consumption patterns without affecting the intended semantics of smart grid operations. In this paper, we expose a complete break of such an existing privacy preserving metering scheme [10] by determining individual consumption patterns efficiently, thus compromising its privacy guarantees. The underlying methodol-ogy of this scheme allows us to - i) retrieve the lower bounds of the privacy parameters and ii) establish a relationship between the privacy preserved output readings and the initial input readings. Subsequently, we present a rigorous experimental validation of our proposed attacking methodology using real-life dataset to highlight its efficacy. In summary, the present paper queries: Is the Whole lesser than its Parts? for such privacy aware metering algorithms which attempt to reduce the information leakage of aggregated consumption patterns of the individuals.

Active consumers have now been empowered thanks to the smart grid concept. To avoid fossil fuels, the demand side must provide flexibility through Demand Response events. However, selecting the proper participants for an event can be complex due to response uncertainty. The authors design a Contextual Consumer Rate to identify the trustworthy participants according to previous performances. In the present case study, the authors address the problem of new players with no information. In this way, two different methods were compared to predict their rate. Besides, the authors also refer to the consumer privacy testing of the dataset with and without information that could lead to the participant identification. The results found to prove that, for the proposed methodology, private information does not have a high impact to attribute a rate.

Demand response has emerged as one of the most promising methods for the deployment of sustainable energy systems. Attempts to democratize demand response and establish programs for residential consumers have run into scalability issues and risks of leaking sensitive consumer data. In this work, we propose a privacy-friendly, incentive-based demand response market, where consumers offer their flexibility to utilities in exchange for a financial compensation. Consumers submit encrypted offer which are aggregated using Computation Over Encrypted Data to ensure consumer privacy and the scalability of the approach. The optimal allocation of flexibility is then determined via double-auctions, along with the optimal consumption schedule for the users with respect to the day-ahead electricity prices, thus also shielding participants from high electricity prices. A case study is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

With the proliferation of data in Internet-related applications, incidences of cyber security have increased manyfold. Energy management, which is one of the smart city layers, has also been experiencing cyberattacks. Furthermore, the Distributed Energy Resources (DER), which depend on different controllers to provide energy to the main physical smart grid of a smart city, is prone to cyberattacks. The increased cyber-attacks on DER systems are mainly because of its dependency on digital communication and controls as there is an increase in the number of devices owned and controlled by consumers and third parties. This paper analyzes the major cyber security and privacy challenges that might inflict, damage or compromise the DER and related controllers in smart cities. These challenges highlight that the security and privacy on the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence, and smart grid, which are the building blocks of a smart city, must be addressed in the DER sector. It is observed that the security and privacy challenges in smart cities can be solved through the distributed framework, by identifying and classifying stakeholders, using appropriate model, and by incorporating fault-tolerance techniques.

Managing electricity effectively also means knowing as accurately as possible when, where and how electricity is used. Detailed metering and timely allocation of consumption can help identify specific areas where energy consumption is excessive and therefore requires action and optimization. All those interested in the measurement process (distributors, sellers, wholesalers, managers, ultimately customers and new prosumer figures - producers / consumers -) have an interest in monitoring and managing energy flows more efficiently, in real time.Smart meter plays a key role in sending data containing consumer measurements to both the producer and the consumer, thanks to chain 2. It allows you to connect consumption and production, during use and the customer’s identity, allowing billing as Time-of-Use or Real-Time Pricing, and through the new two-way channel, this information is also made available to the consumer / prosumer himself, enabling new services such as awareness of energy consumption at the very moment of energy use.This is made possible by latest generation devices that "talk" with the end user, which use chain 2 and the power line for communication.However, the implementation of smart meters and related digital technologies associated with the smart grid raises various concerns, including, privacy. This paper provides a comparative perspective on privacy policies for residential energy customers, moreover, it will be possible to improve security through the blockchain for the introduction of smart contracts.

Over the past decade, smart grids have been widely implemented. Real-time pricing can better address demand-side management in smart grids. Real-time pricing requires managers to interact more with consumers at the data level, which raises many privacy threats. Thus, we introduce differential privacy into the Real-time pricing for privacy protection. However, differential privacy leaves more space for an adversary to compromise the robustness of the system, which has not been well addressed in the literature. In this paper, we propose a novel active attack detection scheme against stealthy attacks, and then give the proof of correctness and effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Further, we conduct extensive experiments with real datasets from CER to verify the detection performance of the proposed scheme.

The electromagnetic energy harvesting technology is a new and effective way to supply power to the condition monitoring sensors installed on or near the transmission line. We will use Computer Simulation Technology Software to simulate the different designs of stand-alone electromagnetic energy harvesters The power generated by energy harvesters of different design structures is compared and analyzed through simulation and experimental results. We then propose an improved design of energy harvester.

Satisfying the growing demand for electricity is a huge challenge for electricity providers without a robust and good infrastructure. For effective electricity management, the infrastructure has to be strengthened from the generation stage to the transmission and distribution stages. In the current electrical infrastructure, the evolution of smart grids provides a significant solution to the problems that exist in the conventional system. Enhanced management visibility and better monitoring and control are achieved by the integration of wireless sensor network technology in communication systems. However, to implement these solutions in the existing grids, the infrastructural constraints impose a major challenge. Along with the choice of technology, it is also crucial to avoid exorbitant implementation costs. This paper presents a self-stabilizing hierarchical algorithm for the existing electrical network. Neighborhood Area Networks (NAN) and Home Area Networks (HAN) layers are used in the proposed architecture. The Home Node (HN), Simple Node (SN) and Cluster Head (CH) are the three types of nodes used in the model. Fraudulent users in the system are identified efficiently using the proposed model based on the observations made through simulation on OMNeT++ simulator.

Smart grid is the next generation for power generation, consumption and distribution. However, with the introduction of smart communication in such sensitive components, major risks from cybersecurity perspective quickly emerged. This survey reviews and reports on the state-of-the-art techniques for detecting cyber attacks in smart grids, mainly through machine learning techniques.

Current sensors are widely used in power grid for power metering, automation and power equipment monitoring. Since the tradeoff between the sensitivity and the measurement range needs to be made to design a current sensor, it is difficult to deploy one sensor to measure both the small-magnitude and the large-magnitude current. In this research, we design a surface-mount current sensor by using the tunneling magneto-resistance (TMR) devices and show that the tradeoff between the sensitivity and the detection range can be broken. Two TMR devices of different sensitivity degrees were integrated into one current sensor module, and a signal processing algorithm was implemented to fusion the outputs of the two TMR devices. Then, a platform was setup to test the performance of the surface-mount current sensor. The results showed that the designed current sensor could measure the current from 2 mA to 100 A with an approximate 93 dB dynamic range. Besides, the nonintrusive feature of the surface-mount current sensor could make it convenient to be deployed on-site.

In view of the problems that the existing power grid risk assessment mainly depends on the data fusion of decision-making level, which has strong subjectivity and less effective information, this paper proposes a risk assessment method of microgrid system based on random matrix theory. Firstly, the time series data of multiple sensors are constructed into a high-dimensional matrix according to the different parameter types and nodes; Then, based on random matrix theory and sliding time window processing, the average spectral radius sequence is calculated to characterize the state of microgrid system. Finally, an example is given to verify the effectiveness of the method.

For some countries around the world, meeting demand is a serious concern. Power supply market is increasingly increasing, posing a big challenge for various countries throughout the world. The increasing expansion in the market for power needs upgrading system dependability to increase the smart grid's resilience. This smart electric grid has a sensor that analyses grid power availability and sends regular updates to the organisation. The internet is currently being utilized to monitor processes and place orders for running variables from faraway places. A large number of scanners have been used to activate electrical equipment for domestic robotics for a long period in the last several days. Conversely, if it is not correctly implemented, it will have a negative impact on cost-effectiveness as well as productivity. For something like a long time, home automation has relied on a large number of sensor nodes to control electrical equipment. Since there are so many detectors, this isn't cost-effective. In this article, develop and accept a wireless communication component and a management system suitable for managing independent efficient network units from voltage rises and voltage control technologies in simultaneous analyzing system reliability in this study. This research paper has considered secondary method to collect relevant and in-depth data related to the wireless sensor network and its usage in smart grid monitoring.

This article describes an analysis of the key technologies currently applied to improve the quality, efficiency, safety and sustainability of Smart Grid systems and identifies the tools to optimize them and possible gaps in this area, considering the different energy sources, distributed generation, microgrids and energy consumption and production capacity. The research was conducted with a qualitative methodological approach, where the literature review was carried out with studies published from 2019 to 2022, in five (5) databases following the selection of studies recommended by the PRISMA guide. Of the five hundred and four (504) publications identified, ten (10) studies provided insight into the technological trends that are impacting this scenario, namely: Internet of Things, Big Data, Edge Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. It is concluded that to obtain the best performance within Smart Grids, it is necessary to have the maximum synergy between these technologies, since this union will enable the application of advanced smart digital technology solutions to energy generation and distribution operations, thus allowing to conquer a new level of optimization.

Traditional power consumption management systems are not showing enough reliability and thus, smart grid technology has been introduced to reduce the excess power wastages. In the context of smart grid systems, network communication is another term that is used for developing the network between the users and the load profiles. Cloud computing and clustering are also executed for efficient power management. Based on the facts, this research is going to identify wireless network communication systems to monitor and control smart grid power consumption. Primary survey-based research has been carried out with 62 individuals who worked in the smart grid system, tracked, monitored and controlled the power consumptions using WSN technology. The survey was conducted online where the respondents provided their opinions via a google survey form. The responses were collected and analyzed on Microsoft Excel. Results show that hybrid commuting of cloud and edge computing technology is more advantageous than individual computing. Respondents agreed that deep learning techniques will be more beneficial to analyze load profiles than machine learning techniques. Lastly, the study has explained the advantages and challenges of using smart grid network communication systems. Apart from the findings from primary research, secondary journal articles were also observed to emphasize the research findings.

In order to solve the problem of high data collision probability, high access delay and high-power consumption in random access process of power Internet of Things, an access scheme for large-scale micro-power wireless sensors based on slot-scheduling and hybrid mode is presented. This scheme divides time into different slots and designs a slot-scheduling algorithm according to network workload and power consumption. Sensors with different service priorities are arranged in different time slots for competitive access, using appropriate random-access mechanism. And rationally arrange the number of time slots and competing end-devices in different time slots. This scheme is able to meet the timeliness requirements of different services and reduce the overall network power consumption when dealing with random access scenarios of large-scale micro-power wireless sensor network. Based on the simulation results of actual scenarios, this access scheme can effectively reduce the overall power consumption of the network, and the high priority services can meet the timeliness requirements on the premise of lower power consumption, while the low priority services can further reduce power consumption.

The electrical grid connects all the generating stations to supply uninterruptible power to the consumers. With the advent of technology, smart sensors and communication are integrated with the existing grid to behave like a smart system. This smart grid is a two-way communication that connects the consumers and producers. It is a connected smart network that integrates electricity generation, transmission, substation, distribution, etc. In this smart grid, clean, reliable power with a high-efficiency rate of transmission is available. In this paper, a highly efficient smart management system of a smart grid with overall protection is proposed. This management system checks and monitors the parameters periodically. This future technology also develops a smart transformer with ac and dc compatibility, for self-protection and for the healing process.

The most vital requirement for the electric power system as a critical infrastructure is its security of supply. In course of the transition of the electric energy system, however, the security provided by the N-1 principle increasingly reaches its limits. The IT/OT convergence changes the threat structure significantly. New risk factors, that can lead to major blackouts, are added to the existing ones. The problem, however, the cost of security optimizations are not always in proportion to their value. Not every component is equally critical to the energy system, so the question arises, "How secure does my system need to be?". To adress the security-by-design principle, this contribution introduces a Security Metric (SecMet) that can be applied to Smart Grid architectures and its components and deliver an indicator for the "Securitisation Need" based on an individual risk assessment.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are capable of making driving decisions autonomously using multiple sensors and a complex autonomous driving (AD) software. However, AVs introduce numerous unique security challenges that have the potential to create safety consequences on the road. Security mechanisms require a benchmark suite and an evaluation framework to generate comparable results. Unfortunately, AVs lack a proper benchmarking framework to evaluate the attack and defense mechanisms and quantify the safety measures. This paper introduces BenchAV – a security benchmark suite and evaluation framework for AVs to address current limitations and pressing challenges of AD security. The benchmark suite contains 12 security and performance metrics, and an evaluation framework that automates the metric collection process using Carla simulator and Robot Operating System (ROS).