Actively Secure Authenticated Data Acquisition Protocols: Advancing Substation Automation Security

EasyChair Preprint 15462

Abstract

The deployment of sensors and electronic devices has become instrumental in realizing the functionality of a smart grid. Secure operational data collection via communication protocols from field devices by the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) at the utility control center is fundamental for the secure and reliable operation of smart grids. In this work, we propose two efficient transport-layer protocols for authenticated acquisition of data from smart grid devices. Our first protocol is based on a pre-shared key, and the second protocol is certificate-based. The constructions of our protocols are based on computationally efficient cryptographic primitives such as lightweight authenticated encryption, digital signatures, and elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) computations. We formally prove the security of our protocols against both active and passive adversaries. Finally, to demonstrate their prac- ticality, we implement our protocols and perform comparative analysis with other contemporary protocols.

Keyphrases: Authenticated data collection, SCADA, Secure transport protocol, Smart Grid Security, Smart grid security.

@booklet{EasyChair:15462,
  author    = {Shabnam Saderi Oskouei and Oyonika Samazder and Gaurav Vinay Uttarkar and Kalikinkar Mandal},
  title     = {Actively Secure Authenticated Data Acquisition Protocols: Advancing Substation Automation Security},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 15462},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2024}}