The smart grid (SG) embodies the future of power systems, featuring self-healing mechanisms, adaptability, and sustainability. Nevertheless, its interconnected and widely distributed architecture presents substantial cybersecurity challenges, rendering it susceptible to cyber attacks that may cause outages, infrastructure failures, and data breaches, including the exposure of personal information. Public-key cryptography (PKC) has historically been utilized to ensure confidentiality, authenticate devices, and maintain data integrity. However, the rise of quantum computing poses a serious threat to the viability of these PKC algorithms, particularly with the potential implementation of algorithms such as Shor’s algorithm. To address these vulnerabilities, we propose an innovative security protocol for post-quantum communication within SG applications, engineered to resist both classical and quantum threats. Our comparative study reveals that this protocol delivers enhanced security and improved functionality while maintaining low communication and computational costs compared to existing methods. We further demonstrate its practicality through real-time testbed experiments and implementations on a Raspberry Pi, supported by an extensive security assessment using the Scyther automated validation tool. A detailed comparison with Kyber in terms of computational efficiency, storage requirements, and implementation overhead to support our lightweight claim. Finally, a network simulation conducted using Network Simulator 3 (NS3) further demonstrates the performance of the proposed scheme, highlighting its scalability and reliability.
The smart grid (SG) embodies the future of power systems, featuring self-healing mechanisms, adaptability, and sustainability. Nevertheless, its interconnected and widely distributed architecture presents substantial cybersecurity challenges, rendering it susceptible to cyber attacks that may cause outages, infrastructure failures, and data breaches, including the exposure of personal information. Public-key cryptography (PKC) has historically been utilized to ensure confidentiality, authenticate devices, and maintain data integrity. However, the rise of quantum computing poses a serious threat to the viability of these PKC algorithms, particularly with the potential implementation of algorithms such as Shor’s algorithm. To address these vulnerabilities, we propose an innovative security protocol for post-quantum communication within SG applications, engineered to resist both classical and quantum threats. Our comparative study reveals that this protocol delivers enhanced security and improved functionality while maintaining low communication and computational costs compared to existing methods. We further demonstrate its practicality through real-time testbed experiments and implementations on a Raspberry Pi, supported by an extensive security assessment using the Scyther automated validation tool. A detailed comparison with Kyber in terms of computational efficiency, storage requirements, and implementation overhead to support our lightweight claim. Finally, a network simulation conducted using Network Simulator 3 (NS3) further demonstrates the performance of the proposed scheme, highlighting its scalability and reliability.
The Smart Grid (SG) represents the next-generation power system in the future grid infrastructure, designed for self-healing, adaptability, and sustainability. However, the interconnected and geographically dispersed nature of SG systems introduces cybersecurity risks, potentially leading to severe incidents. Cyber attacks on SG applications could result in significant events, including outages and infrastructure damage. These attacks may compromise energy data, starting with the leakage of personal information from grid members. To address these risks, confidentiality, device authentication, and data integrity are essential, traditionally implemented through public-key cryptography (PKC). The rise of quantum computers and the potential adaptation of algorithms like Shor’s poses a threat to PKC algorithms in SG communications. In response, we propose a security protocol for post-quantum communication in SG applications, ensuring resilience against classical and quantum attacks. The protocol has been tested through rigorous informal security analysis, and comparative analysis demonstrates its scalability and effectiveness in real-world scenarios.
The recent advancement of smart grid systems, integrating cyber-physical systems with information and communication technologies enables real-time monitoring, control, and data transmission. However, these operations often inherently insecure communication infrastructures increasing exposure to cyber threats and data breaches. Consequently, cryptographic authenticated and key agreement protocols address cyber-attacks, threats, and vulnerabilities to protect data privacy and security in smart grid. Meanwhile, quantum computing progression is rapidly footprinted in real-world application thus quantum computing-based Grover's and Shor’s algorithm is capable for breaking classical cryptographic algorithms mathematical advances. Therefore, this review explores the adaptability of quantum computing, examines its impact on classical cryptography vulnerabilities, and highlights the role of quantum cryptography in enhancing security and scalability of smart grid cyber-physical systems. Accordingly, a comparative analysis was conducted to assess the security and performance of Rivest-Shamir Adleman, elliptic curve cryptography and digital signature algorithms against quantum cryptography for highlighting their respective strengths and limitations in quantum era context. This review provides a foundation of future researchers for integrate quantum technology and develop quantum-resilient solutions that overcome the constraints of classical cryptography.
The increasing integration of smart grids within the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem requires the implementation of robust security measures due to vulnerabilities brought about by pervasive connectivity. Previous smart grid security protocols are based on classical cryptographic algorithms, which are susceptible to significant threats from emerging quantum computers. Consequently, the adoption of quantum-resistant solutions is imperative for the long-term security of smart grids. This article presents a novel protocol for authentication and secret key establishment in smart grids, utilizing post-quantum cryptography (PQC) algorithms. Our proposed protocol employs the FALCON digital signature algorithm for integrity verification and the CRYSTALS-Kyber key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) for secret key establishment, providing robust protection against quantum attacks. Our optimized implementation of the proposed protocol on a graphics processing unit (GPU) targets grid security module (GSM)/gateway-side deployments and demonstrates scalability under large numbers of concurrent authentication requests. Experimental validation demonstrates the proposed protocol’s ability to effectively manage numerous concurrent authentication requests, ensuring secure and efficient communication within smart grid networks.
The incorporation of Electric Vehicles into smart grid networks poses great cybersecurity threats, especially with respect to the secure authentication of devices and communications between charging stations, electric vehicles, and grid operators. Conventional cryptography methods like RSA and ECC are susceptible to quantum computing attacks, which call for the implementation of post-quantum cryptography in order to make these systems quantum-resistant. This paper discusses need and imminence of post-quantum cryptography-based authentication mechanisms for improving the security of smart grid infrastructure that facilitates Electric Vehicles operation and charging stations. It introduces the existing authentication protocols, their shortcomings from a quantum threat perspective, and suggests a framework using quantum-resistant algorithms for authenticating devices, exchanging keys, and ensuring data integrity. Moreover, we tackle scalability, efficiency, and standardization issues regarding the deployment of PQC-based solutions in large-scale smart grid settings. This research identifies the compelling need for secure, quantum-resistant authentication systems to protect the increasing overlap of electric vehicles and smart grid networks, with a view to maintaining secure, reliable, and future-proof energy infrastructures.
The rapid advancement of quantum computing poses a significant threat to classical cryptographic mechanisms, necessitating the integration of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) into security frameworks for IoT-enabled power electronics. Smart grids and industrial automation systems rely on interconnected IoT devices for real-time control, monitoring, and data exchange, making them highly vulnerable to emerging quantum threats. This book chapter explores PQC frameworks tailored for securing power electronics in smart grid and industrial applications, addressing critical challenges such as computational overhead, communication latency, system compatibility, and scalability. The impact of PQC on real-time performance was evaluated, considering its influence on industrial IoT networks, cryptographic handshake efficiency, and data transmission reliability. Hybrid cryptographic solutions that combine classical and post-quantum approaches are assessed for their feasibility in power electronics IoT systems. Security resilience under adverse network conditions, including cyberattacks and network disruptions, was also analyzed to ensure seamless PQC integration without compromising operational stability. Through a comprehensive study of PQC implementation, performance optimization, and interoperability testing, this chapter provides insights into the future of secure and resilient power electronics systems in quantum-era cybersecurity landscapes.
The development and evolution of the smart grid into complex, cyber-physical energy systems make it essential to secure?communication among the distributed components. The rise of quantum computing has made it even more pressing to develop protocols that?are secure outside the limitations of classical cryptosystems. In this paper, it proposes a quantum-assisting secure communication scheme (QASCP) to?boost the security and energy for smart grid communication systems. The proposed protocol combines quantum key distribution with lightweight entropy-based mutual authentication and dynamic session management. It is designed to defend grid assets such as control centers, smart meters, and distribute energy?resources from sophisticated adversarial models, including quantum-capable threats. The approach consists of system level simulation utilizing a?co-simulation framework customized for quantum smart grid communication. The performance of this scheme was compared?against classical and PQ lattice-based schemes in terms of the authentication latency, energy consumption, entropy preservation, and scalability to handle the load and delay effects, under the assumptions of different loading and delay scenarios. Simulation results show that QASCP is able to reduce the energy consumption and authenticity latency, simultaneously it keeps the high throughput and leaves strong entropy?under attack scenarios. The protocol is also shown to?remain robust with varying quantum bit error rates as well as having a smaller memory footprint on popular network topologies. The results provide evidence for the practical integration of?quantum-secure communication in smart grid architectures. By addressing security and performance simultaneously, the protocol?provides a path to future-proof energy networks which can support dependable operations in a quantum-enhanced environment. This could be future enhance for energy efficiency.