Power system communications and information-theoretic cryptography

The purpose of this study is to realize a practical method of providing cyber security for power system communications. Power system communications can be classified into three main categories: real-time protection, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and remote access. This paper describes a concept and method of effectively applying information-theoretic cryptography to real-time protection and control systems, such as pilot protection schemes, wide area protection systems etc. From the requirements of real-time communication and long-term maintenance of such systems, we propose a novel scheme based on unconditionally secure authentication codes (A-codes) having short authenticators (authentication tags) and a feasible number of keys. The efficiency of the scheme is illustrated using several examples of protection and control systems.