Abstract
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) has currently become the most popular element in smart grid implementations both in home area network (HAN) and Neighborhood Area Network (NAN) environment as well as in large commercial/industrial establishments. The security of AMI has been an issue for several years, and many tools and utilities have been proposed to ensure the security of AMI networks. However, no network is completely safe from malicious users (hackers). Smart Meters (SM) in the NAN are typical targets for attackers, their objective being the acquisition of authentication information and attempting to successfully authenticate to become a part of the NAN. Such attacks are easy to launch and can cause significant impact since false data can be injected into the system. We explore the impact of such an attack on a previously developed authentication scheme and demonstrate that packet replays at a very fast rate can drain resources in a fashion similar to a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. The effect is pronounced since the authentication scheme uses a multi-hop path to reach the central authentication server. The intermediate nodes partially process each packet before forwarding it, causing an increase in the end-to-end delays as well as increased energy consumption. The authentication scheme is coded in C and the replay attacks are launched using an existing open source security tools.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Berger, L.T., Iniewski, K.: Smart Grid Applications, Communications, and Security. Wiley, Hoboken (2012)
Tomkiw, L.: Russia-Ukraine Cyberattack Update: Security Company Links Moscow Hacker Group To Electricity Shut Down (2016, 8 Jan 2016). http://www.ibtimes.com/russia-ukraine-cyberattack-update-security-company-links-moscow-hacker-group-2256634
Alohali, B., Kifayat, K., Shi, Q., Hurst, W.: A survey on cryptography key management schemes for smart grid. J. Comput. Sci. Appl. 3, 27–39 (2015)
Meng, W., Ma, R., Chen, H.-H.: Smart grid neighborhood area networks: a survey. IEEE Netw. 28, 24–32 (2014)
Badra, M., Zeadally, S.: Key management solutions in the smart grid environment. In: Wireless and Mobile Networking Conference (WMNC), 2013 6th Joint IFIP, pp. 1–7 (2013)
Das, S., Ohba, Y., Kanda, M., Famolari, D., Das, S.K.: A key management framework for AMI networks in smart grid. IEEE Commun. Mag. 50, 30–37 (2012)
Nian, L., Jinshan, C., Lin, Z., Jianhua, Z., Yanling, H.: A key management scheme for secure communications of advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid. IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron. 60, 4746–4756 (2013)
Yee Wei, L., Palaniswami, M., Kounga, G., Lo, A.: WAKE: key management scheme for wide-area measurement systems in smart grid. IEEE Commun. Mag. 51, 34–41 (2013)
Kim, J.-Y. Choi, H.-K.: An efficient and versatile key management protocol for secure smart grid communications. In: 2012 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), pp. 1823–1828 (2012)
Knapp, E.D., Samani, R.: Applied Cyber Security and the Smart Grid: Implementing Security Controls into the Modern Power Infrastructure. Elsevier Science, Burlington (2013)
Kamto, J., Lijun, Q., Fuller, J., Attia, J.: Light-weight key distribution and management for advanced metering infrastructure. In: 2011 IEEE GLOBECOM Workshops (GC Wkshps), pp. 1216–1220 (2011)
McLaughlin, S., Podkuiko, D., McDaniel, P.: Energy theft in the advanced metering infrastructure. In: Rome, E., Bloomfield, R. (eds.) CRITIS 2009. LNCS, vol. 6027, pp. 176–187. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-14379-3_15
Luo, L., Tai, N., Yang, G.: Wide-area protection research in the smart grid. Energy Procedia 16(Part C), 1601–1606 (2012)
Gao, J., Xiao, Y., Liu, J., Liang, W., Chen, C.L.P.: A survey of communication/networking in Smart Grids. Future Gener. Comput. Syst. 28, 391–404 (2012)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Alohali, B., Kifayat, K., Shi, Q., Hurst, W. (2017). Replay Attack Impact on Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). In: Hu, J., Leung, V., Yang, K., Zhang, Y., Gao, J., Yang, S. (eds) Smart Grid Inspired Future Technologies. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 175. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47729-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47729-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47728-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47729-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)