Security Protocols Against Cyber Attacks in the Distribution Automation System

Abstract

-As a communication technology plays an integral part in a power system, security issues become major concerns. This paper deals with the security problems in the distribution automation system (DAS) which has an inherent vulnerability to cyber attacks due to its high dependency on the communication and geographically widely spread terminal devices.We analyze the types of cyber threats in many applications of the distribution system and formulate security goals. Then we propose an efficient security protocol to achieve these goals. The protocol avoids complex computation of any encryption algorithm, considering resource-constraint network nodes. We also propose a secure key distribution protocol. Finally we demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed security protocol by experiments.

Quantitative Vulnerability Assessment of Cyber Security for Distribution Automation Systems

“…Confidentiality is usually the main concern in terms of personal privacy [22] and the leakage of system settings can ultimately lead to integrity or availability attacks [23]. However, compared with integrity and availability, loss of confidentiality will not affect the control performance of the DAS directly in most cases [15]. Thus, the physical consequences of cyber-attacks on confidentiality are not the research emphasis of this paper.…”

“…As a result, the real-time transmission of control commands and measurement data requirement might be violated. How to design a cryptographic algorithm which can ensure that the messages can be appropriately encrypted while limiting the latency is a research hotspot [15,16,28], but it is out of the scope of this paper. In this paper, the time needed to transmit information between the control center server and the terminal devices, including transmission time and the extra computation time for encryption and decryption, can be calculated according to the computer network knowledge [29].…”

“…In these studies, the intelligent terminal devices are usually located in restricted areas. On the contrary, the terminal devices in a DAS are usually located at remote areas with limited physical protection, e.g., FRTUs [15]. These terminal devices act as widespread real-time monitors and intelligent controllers in a distribution system, and can exchange measurement data and control commands with the DAS control center server through communication network in normal operations.…”

Developing a Multi-Layer Strategy for Securing Control Systems of Oil Refineries

“…Each layer will acts against one or more of possible security challenges. There exist many cyber threats facing control systems as cited in Table 1 [5]. Each security layer will be part of the defense on depth against threats.…”

Compressive sensing-based data encryption system with application to sense-through-wall UWB noise radar

“…The first issue, in our case, security during wireless transmission, has been studied widely [1][2][3][4]. The second issue, security of stored data is less studied and of greater relevance.…”