Digital Certificate Verification Scheme for Smart Grid using Fog Computing (FONICA)

Certificate issued from certification authority can be revoked by a variety of reasons such as loss of private key, loss of qualification, and change of key. For such reasons, validation protocol of certificate, which can check status of certificate that is used in transactions on real-time basis, is required. The most generally protocols used these days are the use of the CRL (certificate revocation list) and the OCSP (online certificate status protocol). But the CRL can not give the real-time certificate status because the certificate is being delivered periodically, and the OCSP is structural concentration problem generated that one node handling all transactions. It will also take a long time to validate the certificate because each trade has to send mass information through the network. In this paper, we propose the protocol of real-time certificate validation that solves network overload and communication bottleneck by requesting certification using virtual identifier information of signer. Also, we confirm speed of certificate validation faster than existing CRL and OCSP protocol by test

Trust in Secure Sockets Layer–based communications is traditionally provided by Certificate (or Certification) Authorities (CAs) in the form of signed certificates. Checking the validity of a certificate involves three steps: (i) checking its expiration date, (ii) verifying its signature, and (iii) ensuring that it is not revoked. Currently, such certificate revocation checks (i.e., step (iii) above) are done either via Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs), or Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) servers. Unfortunately, despite the existence of these revocation checks, sophisticated cyber-attackers can still trick web browsers to trust a revoked certificate, believing that it is still valid. Although frequently updated , nonced , and timestamped certificates can reduce the frequency and impact of such cyber-attacks, they add a huge burden to the CAs and OCSP servers. Indeed, CAs and/or OCSP servers need to timestamp and sign on a regular basis all the responses, for every certificate they have issued, resulting in a very high overhead. To mitigate this and provide a solution to the described cyber-attacks, we present CCSP : a new approach to provide timely information regarding the status of certificates, which capitalizes on a newly introduced notion called Signed Collections . In this article, we present in detail the notion of Signed Collections and the complete design, implementation, and evaluation of our approach. Performance evaluation shows that CCSP (i) reduces space requirements by more than an order of magnitude, (ii) lowers the number of signatures required by six orders of magnitude compared to OCSP-based methods, and (iii) adds only a few milliseconds of overhead in the overall user latency.

Current digital certification revocation systems are insufficient in the application scenario of multiple certification authorities (CAs), and it leads to a lack of mutual trust, access stability, and timeliness of data synchronization between CAs. We propose a decentralized digital certificate revocation system based on consortium blockchain technology with a secret sharing scheme. It can invalidate the digital certificate in special cases to protect the user's information and property security. Based on the characteristics of the decentralized consensus mechanism, consortium blockchain technology is the core technology of the system. The scheme achieves collaborative management of digital certificate revocation lists (CRLs) by multiple CAs, and introduces secret sharing scheme, further safeguarding the reliability of the maintenance process, and then the online certificate status protocol (OCSP) can be developed based on this system. This system is security, effective, and cannot be tampered. Compared with the traditional revocation scheme, it achieves trusted and reliable CRL system above multiple CAs, which can provide new ideas for the way of digital certificate revocation and expand the application range of blockchain technology.

Smart grid has been an active research area in recent years because almost all the technologies required to build smart grid are mature enough. It is expected that not only can smart grid reduce electricity consumption, but it can also provide a more reliable and versatile service than the traditional power grid can. Although the infrastructure of smart grid all over the world is far from complete yet, there is no doubt that our daily life will benefit a lot from smart grid. Hence, many researches are aimed to point out the challenges and needs of future smart grid. The question is, how do we use the massive data captured by smart meters to provide services that are as “smart” as possible instead of just automatically reading information from the meters. This paper begins with a discussion of the smart grid before we move on to the basic computational awareness for smart grid. A brief review of data mining and machine learning technologies for smart grid, which are often used for computational awareness, is then given to further explain their potentials. Finally, challenges, potentials, open issues, and future trends of smart grid are addressed.

Do we all really know what a fog node is? Current trends towards an open definition

Smart grid is an evolving new power system framework with ICT driven power equipment massively layered structure. The new generation sensors, smart meters and electronic devices are integral components of smart grid. However, the upcoming deployment of smart devices at different layers followed by their integration with communication networks may introduce cyber threats. The interdependencies of various subsystems functioning in the smart grid, if affected by cyber-attack, may be vulnerable and greatly reduce efficiency and reliability due to any one of the device not responding in real time frame. The cyber security vulnerabilities become even more evident due to the existing superannuated cyber infrastructure. This paper presents a critical review on expected cyber security threats in complex environment and addresses the grave concern of a secure cyber infrastructure and related developments. An extensive review on the cyber security objectives and requirements along with the risk evaluation process has been undertaken. The paper analyses confidentiality and privacy issues of entire components of smart power system. A critical evaluation on upcoming challenges with innovative research concerns is highlighted to achieve a roadmap of an immune smart grid infrastructure. This will further facilitate R&D and associated developments.

The efficiency of the emerging smart power grid infrastructure critically depends on the ability of the communication network to deliver real-time energy prices to the consumers. This paper's contribution is twofold. First, it derives the relevant Quality of Service (QoS) communication requirements and proposes the corresponding overall performance criterion for the communication network, which quantifies the negative effect of delaying energy pricing information on the grid operations. Second, this paper demonstrates that the conventional Network Utility Maximization (NUM) based cross-layer optimization framework can be enhanced to incorporate the specific requirements of the smart power grid infrastructure. The conventional NUM based cross-layer network optimization balances tradeoffs between bandwidth requirements of multiple users, given limited network resources. The proposed enhanced NUM also allows the system to balance user requirements for (a) communication reliability by taking advantage of multipath routing in presence of network outages, and (b) communication delays by taking advantage of priority packet scheduling. Future research should quantify advantages of the proposed robust and QoS-aware NUM as compared to the conventional NUM for specific operation scenarios of the smart power grid infrastructure.

In this paper, we propose a lightweight mechanism for revoking security certificates that is appropriate for the limited bandwidth and hardware cost constraints of a VANET. A Certificate Authority (CA) issues certificates to trusted nodes, i.e., vehicles. If the CA looses trust in a vehicle (e.g., due to evidence of malfunction or malicious behavior), the CA must promptly revoke the certificates of the distrusted vehicle. To distribute revocation information quickly even during incremental deployment, we propose that CAs use Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs). The CRL should be composed in a secure manner, and it should be exchanged in a way such that the CRL is both quickly and widely distributed. We previously proposed a mechanism for the quick distribution of CRL updates that also covers a wide area by using vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication . In this paper, we additionally investigate the performance of V2V communication in partial deployment scenarios, that is, where only a certain percentage of vehicles are equipped with VANET radios. We provide simulation results that show our V2V exchange mechanism is quicker than distributing CRLs or CRL updates through road-side units (RSUs) alone. However, this revocation process, which involves both the CA and vehicles, must conform to the aforementioned bandwidth and hardware restrictions. In this paper, we present mechanisms that achieve the goals of reduced CRL size, a computationally efficient mechanism for determining if a certificate is on the CRL, and a lightweight mechanism for exchanging CRL updates. Additionally, we expand on our previous work to provide privacy to revoked vehicles prior to their revocation.

In smart grid, critical data like monitoring data, usage data, state estimation, billing data etc are regularly being talked among its elements. So, security of such a system, if violated, results in massive losses and damages. By compromising with security aspect of such a system is as good as committing suicide. Thus in this paper, we have proposed security mechanism in Advanced Metering Infrastructure of smart grid, formed as Mesh-Zigbee topology. This security mechanism involves PKI based Digital certificate Authentication and Intrusion detection system to protect the AMI from internal and external security attack.

The global energy landscape has always been dominated by fossil fuels, but with the intensification of climate change and environmental issues, people realize that the traditional energy system must be transformed. In order to integrate renewable energy and improve the sustainability and resilience of the energy system, smart grids have emerged. Smart grid is a modern grid system based on advanced communication, control and information technology, which can integrate renewable energy more effectively. As one of the renewable energy sources, solar energy plays an important role in the smart grid. It has the advantages of wide distribution, environmental protection, and renewable, and with technological progress and cost reduction, solar power generation is widely used in smart grids. Similarly, wind energy, another important renewable energy source, also plays an important role in the smart grid. The continuous development of wind turbine technology has made wind power generation more efficient and reliable, and the integration with smart grid infrastructure has further improved the efficiency of wind energy utilization. In addition, hydrogen energy has great potential as a clean energy carrier, but the storage and distribution of hydrogen energy in smart grid systems still face challenges.

Electric power grids are undergoing a modernization process. By relying on the ICT infrastructure and on Internet connectivity, these so-called Smart Grids are now able to provide new functionalities and to become more efficient. However, despite the existence of a few standards that aim to specify the secure operation of Smart Grids, utility companies do not have a comprehensive set of metrics and evaluation tools for assessing security properties in these infrastructures. Thus, it is necessary to develop new toolsets to provide support for vulnerability analysis in Smart Grids. This paper proposes ASTORIA, a framework developed to allow the simulation of attacks and the evaluation of their impact on Smart Grid infrastructures, using closely-related real devices and real topologies comprising both power grid elements as well as ICT and networking equipment. We anticipate that ASTORIA can be used by Smart Grid operators not only to analyze the impact of malicious attacks and other security threats in different components, but also to permit the development and evaluation of anomaly detection techniques in a simulation environment. Further, we present evaluation scenarios illustrating customizable Smart Grid topologies, comprising sensors, master and remote stations, and using an extensible set of attack profiles.

It is a critical issue to allocate redundancy to critical smart grid infrastructure for disaster recovery planning. In this study, a framework to combine statistical prediction methods and optimization models for the optimal redundancy allocation problem is presented. First, statistical simulation methods to identify critical nodes of very large-scale smart grid infrastructure based on the topological features of embedding networks are developed, and then a linear integer programming model based on generalized assignment problem (GAP) for the redundancy allocation of critical nodes in smart grid infrastructure is presented. This paper aims to contribute to the field by employing a general redundancy allocation problem (GRAP) model from high-order nonlinear to linear model transformation. The model is specifically implemented in the context of smart grid infrastructure. The innovative linear integer programming model proposed in this paper capitalizes on the logarithmic multiplication property to reframe the inherently nonlinear resource allocation problem (RAP) into a linearly separable function. This reformulation markedly streamlines the problem, enhancing its suitability for efficient and effective solutions. The findings demonstrate that the combined approach of statistical simulation and optimization effectively addresses the size limitations inherent in a sole optimization approach. Notably, the optimal solutions for redundancy allocation in large grid systems highlight that the cost of redundancy is only a fraction of the economic losses incurred due to weather-related outages.

One of the major issues for PKI-based mechanisms is the validity of user's certificate. In order to examine whether a certificate is valid or not, the PKI Certificate Authority (CA) has to check the most recent Certificate Revocation List (CRL) that maintains. But the CRL is not always available when is needed. In such a case the problem to be solved is whether to proceed to a transaction or abandon it. One of the main reasons for CRL's unavailability is the CA's server unavailability. In this paper we innovatively propose to adopt software rejuvenation to reduce the probability that CA's cannot issue the CRL. Using a Markovbased model, an indicator is derived, concerning the cost of security incidents and abandoned transactions The aim of the present work consists firstly in defining a threshold under which a transaction can be accomplished even without checking the CRL and secondly in scheduling software rejuvenation on CA's server such that the total operational cost is minimized)

The Smart Grid Infrastructure (SGI) has emerged as a necessary and critical platform for provisioning intelligent and accurate services to consumers of the electric grid, in recent times. With the emergence of this infrastructure and accompanying technologies, the need for securing the same from malicious attempts by the adversary class to disrupt routine operations, cannot be understated. A standard SGI may consist of disparate and heterogeneous devices, cooperating and exchanging customer-specific data (readings), obtained from smart meters. Some of the devices connected to the SGI, such as sensors and actuators, are resource-constrained in nature. In addition, an omnipresent threat to the SGI, from the adversary class in cyberspace, does indeed exist. In this paper, a brief description of various types of malicious attacks against SGI operations, is presented. In addition, a light-weighted pattern matching technique for detecting such attacks, is discussed. The proposed scheme is capable of detecting anomalous device behavior at various levels of the SGI hierarchy, at the same time imposing minimal overhead in terms of communication and storage needed.

Chapter 4 - Smart Grid Considerations: Energy Efficiency vs. Security