Efficient and secure data aggregation for smart metering networks

Detecting impersonation and false data injection attacks is one of the primary concerns in smart metering networks (SMNs) to ensure source authenticity and data integrity. The two approaches typically used in SMN to counter these attacks are end-to-end and hop-by-hop security. In end-to-end security, detecting these attacks can only be done at the end receiver that can result inefficient attack detection and high data loss. Since the end receiver is the only place where verification is done, any malicious node and activities during the data aggregation process can only be detected after all the aggregated data have arrived at the end receiver. This is not only inefficient, but also contributes to the high data loss due to the ineffective data rejection problem. This paper proposes an efficient and secure data aggregation (ESDA) scheme that is aimed to provide early detection of impersonation and false data injection attacks using hop-by-hop security, thus minimizing the need to rely entirely on the end receiver for verification. Our scheme utilizes pairwise key and message authentication code (MAC) to ensure source authenticity and data integrity against the impersonation and false data injection attacks. Our evaluation of the ESDA scheme shows that it outperforms the other comparable schemes in terms of attack detection time and low data loss rate.