Provisioning Substation-level authentication in the smart grid networks

A large number of modern Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) are installed in the Substations for equipment monitoring. In viewing the vision of Smart Grid, these devices provide valuable information that can be put to use to improve reliability and reduce operating costs. In order to integrate IEDs, the utilities are also deploying extensive modern communication networks. However, there is a growing concern about the security of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems (SCADA). Providing secure remote access to substation devices for maintenance is much more challenging than just allowing SCADA to access substation equipment. We propose a lightweight and efficient solution for Substation-level authentication using server-aided verification mechanism in which IEDs and other resource-constrained devices can be authenticated by any remote users with help of the substation controller (SSC). We illustrate that the proposed mechanism can provide better security than the existing ones.