A Security Investigation of Power Line Communication

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In the last few years, the number of internet-connected devices increased rapidly. Various types of devices that were usually operating isolated and offline, such as electricity meters or cars, are becoming more and more interconnected. This enables the devices to share and exchange data in real time and facilitate the users' everyday life. However, in order to enable a cost efficient, reliable and easy integration of such devices, new means of communication are necessary.Power Line Communication (PLC) is one of the technologies that meets the aforementioned requirements. Over the last few years, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance, a consortium composed of the biggest PLC hardware manufacturers, developed and implemented various optimisations to reduce the costs of the hardware, while increasing the robustness of the communication against interference and simultaneously improve the data rates. Due to the utilisation of existing power cables to transmit data, no additional wires have to be installed. This reduces costs and also allows devices to be connected in places where it would not be possible to install extra cables. Apart from the usage in domestic environments as an alternative to WiFi, PLC is a key technology in the smart grid. Electric vehicles that implement the Combined Charging System (CCS) use PLC to communicate with the charging station and exchange charging parameters, such as current and the State of Charge (SOC). In the future, the bi-directional communication will allow the vehicle to directly communicate with the smart gird and act as an energy storage system to buffer surplus energy and if needed inject it back into the grid to compensate demand peaks. Nevertheless, PLC also has a considerable disadvantage. It is susceptible to different kinds of noise, in particular, to background, narrowband and impulsive noise. This noise and interference can be caused by devices, such as dimmers and hairdryers connected to the same power line. At the same time, PLC emits strong electromagnetic radiation, even so intense that it interferes with amateur radio [2]. [1] demonstrated that it is possible to exploit this unintended leakage of electromagnetic emission during a CCS based charging session to capture and decode the exchanged PHY-layer Protocol Data Units (PPDUs).In this research project, a security investigation of Power Line Communication is carried out. More precisely, we will evaluate if active attacks, like packet injection, from the wireless domain are feasible. In addition, appropriate mitigation strategies are investigated to prevent an adversary from injecting packets. This project falls within the EPSRC Security, privacy and trust research areaReferences[1] Richard Baker and Ivan Martinovic. Losing the car keys: Wireless phy-layer insecurity in EV charging. In 28th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 19), Santa Clara, CA, 2019. USENIX Association.[2] Lutz Lampe, Andrea M. Tonello, and Theo G. Swart. Power Line Communications: Principles, Standards and Applications from Multimedia to Smart Grid. Wiley Publishing, 2nd edition, 2016.