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

智能电网是下一代电力网络系统，其中通过结合先进的计算和通信技术来升级和自动化电力的产生、传输、分配和管理，以提高电网的效率、可靠性、经济性和安全性。它由一系列仪表/传感器和控制器/执行器组成，这些仪表/传感器和控制器/执行器通常与变电站/数据集中器以及各种第三方实体进行无线通信。智能仪表测量能量消耗的真实的时间数据，并且将数据传输到变电站并且潜在地传输到家庭区域网络。智能设备与变电站之间的通信通常通过ZigBee Smart Energy 1.x Profile、WiFi或电力线载波（PLC）完成。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。变电站使用有线连接、WiFi、卫星或蜂窝通过广域网（WAN）与公用事业公司的中央服务器进行通信。 智能电网为提高效率、便利性和可持续性带来了巨大的希望;但它也对依赖它们的公民和公司的安全和隐私构成了巨大的风险。智能电网除了继承了所有现有的对通信网络的网络攻击外，在攻击的性质方面，它与所有的信息技术（IT）网络或银行网络系统有着独特的区别。攻击者的目标可能不仅仅是获取未经授权的信息，还可能利用各种网络和物理层攻击，这可能导致在应急分析、调度、计费方面做出错误的决策，或导致远程终止功能来封锁某个区域。保护智能电网的挑战源于（a）在智能设备上运行的无线链路与智能电话、膝上型计算机和台式计算机相比，ZigBee设备（例如ZigBee设备）具有有限的计算能力，并且它要求真实的时间响应，（B）对通信网络的异构性的严重依赖，（c）现场设备对物理层攻击的弱保护，以及（d）控制系统的状态估计严重依赖于不受完整性检查保护的GPS（全球定位系统）定时信号。 该研究的目标是研究一种新的范式，在集成的密码引擎，随机性，传输和调制，代码信令，和空间冗余的ZigBee智能能源设备的普及，提供轻量级的统一保护的机密性，完整性和真实性，隐私保护数据聚合与检测和反物理层攻击的智能电网。 智能电网中的安全运行和通信对于防止金融欺诈、环境事故和其他潜在的灾难性事件非常重要。拟议的研究将提供关于智能电网通信的隐私和安全性的最新研究，并有助于深入了解智能电网部署在其不断发展的过程中的安全通信技术的正确组合，这将有利于学术研究，工业活动和政府机构。

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.