Towards Emergent Security in Low-Latency Smart Grids with Distributed Control

This paper investigates the smart grid communication infrastructure with an upgrade of existing electricity networks and advanced ICT technologies, intelligent devices & system. Considering that the energy utilities have been play an increasingly important role in our modern world, smart grid technology also introduces new security challenges that must be addressed. This paper focuses on the implementation of smart grid communication architecture to develop a real time situation and study the security challenges that is occurring on its communication infrastructure. A micro grid structure with particular generation and distribution specification along with its relevant communication infrastructure is designed to analyze the security challenges. The studies have been performed on the basis of digital computer simulation approach using the Power Factory 14.1 software package. Some dynamic system events were formulated to link the designed micro grid architecture to the real time situation and to analyze the change in different system parameters due to cyber-attack and effect of these changes are examined on the smart grid generation and distribution network. This analysis is further used for identifying the cyberattack prone areas to ensure cyber security and determine the methods required for enabling cyber security in smart grid communication infrastructure.

Attacks on the Industrial Internet of Things – Development of a multi-layer Taxonomy

Guest Editorial

The starting point is the question, why IT security management and IT service management (ITSM) must be integrated at all? Reasons are provided and discussed. ITIL defines practices for the ITSM and is used as a reference. Fourteen ITIL core areas and processes are summarized and assigned to the ESARIS areas in order to provide a sound basis (Sect. 5.1). ITIL is security-aware and comprises a dedicated Information Security Management process. It is shown that more is required. The role of the Security Management organization requires a change. Based on this division of labor between Security Management and IT business departments a staged model for integrating IT security in IT service management activities is presented (Sect. 5.2). Two examples are used to show how the integration of IT security management on the one hand and IT service management (ITIL) on the other should actually be done. New activities need to be added to the ITIL processes or even to the process map in order to make sure that the specific requirements of managing security are met. The ITIL processes dominate the industrialized IT production. In this environment, processes are important elements that exactly specify all steps in advance which need to be carried out by employees. Security activities need to be integrated. The discussion of the two examples shows how this is accomplished in practice (Sect. 5.3).

In the process of the operation and construction of the smart grid, the development of science and technology and the improvement of social productive forces have put forward higher requirements for the development of the power system. In this process, the scale and form of the power system have also changed to a certain extent, and power security has also become the most concerned issue. In the information society, through the application of the Internet of things and big data technology in power security management and control. It can simplify the operation process of the staff and reduce the occurrence of accidents. Distributed smart grid is a new technology proposed for power networks with elastic nodes, which can realize dynamic electricity price demand response without large-scale transformation of infrastructure. In order to analyze the system stability of DSG, six representative machine learning classification models are applied to analyze the stability data of 10000 samples of 4-node system. Combined with the requirements of power system security, stability and economy, the effect of each classification model on the prediction of DSG system stability is tested.

The smart grid is an advanced evolution of the traditional electrical power grid, developed to meet the increasing energy demands and requirements of the 21st century by incorporating digital technologies and data management systems to improve efficiency and reliability. Unlike conventional grids, the smart grid relies on a network of interconnected digital devices, sensors, and computerized controls that enable real-time monitoring and management of electricity distribution across vast geographic areas. However, the growing dependence on digital technologies also brings heightened cyber security concerns, since their integration can expose the grid to an increased risk of malicious intrusions. This systematic literature review investigates the nature and scope of cyber-attacks and cyber defense strategies in smart grids, which are critical to modern energy infrastructure. Following established research guidelines, this review rigorously examines existing studies by focusing on peer-reviewed articles and conference papers to understand the range of cyber security threats and defense mechanisms that smart grids face. The review uses a structured methodology to identify, evaluate, and synthesize key findings, revealing trends and gaps in current knowledge about smart grid security. The outcomes of this analysis offer valuable clarity on the specific weaknesses and operational challenges that affect smart grid infrastructures, contributing to the ongoing efforts to enhance cyber security measures and guide future research in this vital field.

Distributed renewable energy sources, with wide communication components in a microgrid infrastructure, make cyber security assessment and mitigation a developing cyber-physical system study. Extensive cybersecurity threads are prevailing in modernized smart grid. Hence, to detect and mitigate cyber threads an advanced cost-effective resilience cyber risk assessment and mitigation mechanism is needed. To enhance cyber-physical security in smart grids, a secured deep learning algorithm with blockchain technology (BlockDeepNet) is proposed. Distributed secured data analysis is carried by using deep learning approach, while blockchain helps in the implementation of secured decentralized resilient control. To validate, real-time cosimulation on IEEE 15 bus system was conducted. Also, for evaluating cyber security breach, four types of cyberattacks were introduced to validate the effectiveness of proposed security assessment and resilience operation. We obtained normalized resilience index ‖ R 1 ‖ 2 of 2.36 for grid communication failure, 0.91 for replay attack, 1.34 for false data injection, and 1.74 for DoS attack. The obtained results on simulation case study by real-time hardware in the loop implementation showed that the proposed BlockDeepNet accurately reduce load loss for various cyberattack and provide robust resiliency. Overall, this research provides a platform for cybersecurity assessment and enhanced resilience operation of cyber-physical power energy system.

The conventional power grid has gone into transition and converted into what is called "smart grid The smart grid helps to bring reliability, monitoring, controllability, and efficiency. It provides a bidirectional flow of energy and communication. The major element of the smart grid is the communication networks. The smart grid system is comprised of different types of smart devices and heterogeneous networks. These communication networks are prone to many kinds of attacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Man In The Middle (MITM) and replay attacks. As a result, the smart grid is becoming a major target for cybercriminals. In this paper, the vulnerabilities and security issues exist in the smart grid are presented. Finally, the solutions for mitigating the attacks are discussed. It provides an overview of security issues present in the communication system in the smart grid. With this paper, readers can gain more understanding of security issues present in the smart grid communication systems, networks, and devices.

Smart grid is the upgradation of the existing grid in terms of cost, communication infrastructure, internet of things and reliable technologies. In ambitious flagship programme of digital India-project an initiative of India, the potential fields of the missions are identified in the area are smart energy, smart grids, smart homes and smart cities. More than 100 smart cities are planned for information and communication technology driven solutions with big data analytics in India. The exponential growth in smart grids has given certain security risks, cyber threats and protection of stored data as Nation security. Smart Grids, comprising of several communication, monitoring intelligent, metering and electrical equipment used in power grid, have a greater exposure to grid security and cyber-attacks which are potentially disrupt distribution in a city. The paper discusses the electrical grid, challenges in smart grid and the use of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm enable with field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware in smart grids. The AES encryption and decryption chip is designed in Xilinx ISE 14.2 software, synthesized on SPARTAN-3E FPGA and verified with some test cases to ensure that AES can be employed in smart grid security and communication infrastructure.

In real-time large-scale optimization problems, such as in smart grids, centralized algorithms may face difficulties in handling fast-varying system conditions, such as high variability of renewable-based distributed generators (DGs) and controllable loads (CLs). Further, centralized algorithms may encounter computation and communication bottlenecks while handling a large number of variables. To tackle these issues, consensus-based distributed strategies have been proposed recently. However, distributed computational intelligence (CI)-based techniques can provide a much better near-optimal solution within fewer iterations of the algorithm, which is a critical requirement in smart grids. Therefore, in this paper, a consensus-based dimension-distributed CI technique is proposed for real-time optimal control in smart distribution grids in which a large number of DGs and CLs are present. The proposed approach considers each DG or CL as a separate private entity, which is more relevant from the perspective of smart grid optimization. In the proposed consensus-based framework, each DG or CL is associated with an agent, and each agent is allowed to communicate only with its neighboring agents. The effectiveness of the proposed approach in terms of convergence, adaptability, and optimality with respect to a centralized algorithm and a benchmark algorithm is shown through simulations on 30-node and 119-node distribution test systems.

This paper intends to stimulate discussion, research and new points-of-action for IS/IT security management from the background of corporate governance, contemporary debates of how to express observable consequences of IT and IT security, and of didactic issues. It is concluded that empirical research within IT security management is rare as compared to theoretical approaches but needed in order to have IS/IT security management on par with general management.Key wordsIS/IT Security ManagementCorporate GovernanceHolistic Approach

Smart grid has become the hot topic to domestic and foreign about the development trend of power grid in recent years, and communication technology is foundation of the development of smart grid; the paper forecasts the smart grid communications automation and development trend.Further from intelligent dispatching center, smart grid, smart distribution grid and users, in view of the existing and emerging intelligent and automatic application were communication needs analysis, and provide a reliable basis for the smart grid communications planning.

This research work introduces a Genetic Algorithm (GA)-based novel technique for elevated cryptographic security in smart grids. Substitution boxes (S-boxes) are helpful tool for data protection among energy sources, storage units, and controllers. This article deals with an application of GA to optimize chaos-based S-boxes. The GA significantly improves S-box properties like non-linearity and resistance to attacks through selection, crossover, and mutation. This assures more secure and reliable communication framework, supporting efficient and resilient energy distribution in modern smart grids.

Industry managers have long recognized the vital importance of information security for their businesses, but at the same time they perceived security as a technology-driven rather then a business-driven field. Today, this notion is changing and security management is shifting from technology- to business-oriented approaches. Whereas there is evidence of this shift in the literature, this paper argues that security standards and academic work have not yet taken it fully into account. We examine whether this disconnect has lead to a misalignment of IT security requirements in businesses versus industry standards and academic research. We conducted 13 interviews with practitioners from 9 different firms to investigate this question. The results present evidence for a significant gap between security requirements in industry standards and actually reported security vulnerabilities. We further find mismatches between the prioritization of security factors in businesses, standards and real-world threats. We conclude that security in companies serves the business need of protecting information availability to keep the business running at all times.

The smart grid system is composed of the power infrastructure and communication infrastructure and thus is characterized by the flow of electric power and information, respectively. Although there is no doubt that the wireless communication architecture will play a significant role in smart grid, the wireless network introduces additional vulnerabilities, given the scale of potential threats. Therefore, the physical layer security issue is of first priority in the study of smart grid and has already attracted substantial attention in the industry and academia. In this paper, we aimed to present a general overview of the physical layer security in wireless smart grid and cover the effective countermeasures proposed in the literature of smart grid to date. We first investigate the security challenges from malicious attacks. Specifically, two typical forms of malicious attack in smart grid, namely, jamming and bad data injecting, are studied. In addition, the related countermeasures against these malicious attacks are illustrated. Further, we analyze the state of the art of the privacy issues in smart grid. The private information and privacy concerns are introduced, and then the effective solutions to privacy security are provided. Finally, voltage regulation, a security topic that has been hardly studied in the wireless smart grid domain, is presented. We expect that the work presented here will advance the research on smart grid security. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.