Hardware-based Novel Authentication Scheme for Advanced Metering Infrastructure

Security issues pertaining to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system has been a major concern since the advent of the smart grid. In this paper, a novel authentication and key management scheme is proposed for AMI system based on Configurable Ring Oscillator Physically Unclonable Functions (RO PUFs). The scheme provides end-to-end security for the confidentiality and integrity of messages exchanged between utility centers and smart meters. The design is compatible with existing AMI technology and can be implemented on smart meters as PUFs on FPGAs or ASICs. To demonstrate the proof of concept, the proposed scheme is implemented on Xilinx Spartan 3E FPGA boards. The performance of the scheme is measured in terms of storage requirement and authentication time. In addition, a threat model analysis is performed to validate the design against modeling attacks and common wireless sensor network attacks.