Investigation of New Protection Mechanisms and Protocols for Security and Privacy of Smart Grid

智能电网是结合先进的计算和通信技术，将电力的产生、传输、分配和管理升级和自动化，以提高电网的效率、可靠性、经济性和安全性的新一代电网系统。它由一组仪表/传感器和控制器/执行器组成，通常与变电站/数据集中器和各种第三方实体进行无线通信。智能电表测量能源消耗的实时数据，并将数据传输到变电站，甚至可能传输到家庭区域网络。智能设备与变电站之间的通信通常使用ZigBee智能能源1。x Profile、WiFi或电力线载波（PLC）。智能设备和家庭区域网络之间的通信通常使用WiFi、ZigBee、以太网、HomePlug或无线MBus。变电站通过使用有线连接、WiFi、卫星或蜂窝网络的广域网（WAN）与公用事业公司的中央服务器通信。

The smart grid is a next generation power network system in which the generation, transmission, distribution, and management of electricity are upgraded and automated by incorporating advanced computing and communication technologies for improving the efficiency, reliability, economics, and safety of the grid. It consists of a collection of meters/sensors and controllers/actuators that communicate, usually wirelessly, with a substation/data concentrator, and various third party entities. A smart meter measures real time data of energy consumption, and transmits the data to the substation and potentially to a home area network. Communication between the smart devices and the substation is done usually with the ZigBee Smart Energy 1.x Profile, WiFi, or power line carrier (PLC). Communication between smart devices and a home area network typically uses WiFi, ZigBee, Ethernet, HomePlug, or Wireless MBus. The substation communicates with the utility company’s central servers through a wide area network (WAN) using wired connections, WiFi, satellite, or cellular. The smart grid holds enormous promise for improved efficiency, convenience, and sustainability; but it also pose a large risk for the security and privacy of the citizens and companies that depend upon them. Except it inherits all the existing cyber attacks on communication networks, smart grid is uniquely distinguished from all the information technologies (IT) networks or banking network systems in terms of the nature of attacks. The objective of an attacker may not be just gaining unauthorized information, it may exploit a wide range of cyber and physical layer attacks, which result in potentially making erroneous decisions on contingency analysis, dispatch, billing, or leading to a remote termination feature to blackout a region. The challenges for securing smart grid are stems from (a) wireless link runs on smart devices (e.g. ZigBee devices) with limited computational power, compared with smart phones, laptops, and desktop computers, and it requests real time response, (b) the heavy dependence on the heterogeneity of the communication network, (c ) the weak protection of the devices in the field to physical layer attacks, and (d) state estimation of control systems heavily relies on GPS (Global Positioning System) timing signals which are not integrity check protected. The goal of the proposed research is to investigate a new paradigm in terms of the integration of crypto engine, randomness, transmission and modulation, code signalling, and the space redundancy of pervasiveness of ZigBee smart energy devices to provide lightweight unified protection on confidentiality, integrity and authenticity, and privacy preserving data aggregation with detection and anti-physical layer attacks for smart grid. The secure operation and communication in smart grid are important to prevent financial fraud, environmental accidents, and a host of other potentially disasterous incidents. The proposed research will provide state of the art research on privacy and security of smart grid communication and can help to provide insight into the right mix of secure communications technologies for smart grid deployments in their evolving process, which will benefit academic research, industrial activities and government agencies.