Location Based Security for Smart Grid Applications

Smart Grid (SG) promises efficient, sustainable, green and reliable electrical delivery by combining the existing electrical distribution network assets with modern information and communications technologies (ICT) in order to transfer information and energy in both directions. Introduction of these intelligent devices will help the grid monitor, protect, and automatically optimise the operation of interconnected elements, in addition to interaction between energy suppliers and consumers. However, this exposes the future grid to new security challenges and risks. In this paper, a framework for protecting Smart Grid applications using geographic location of the devices connected to it is proposed. With this framework, each device on the grid adds an extra layer of security. The proposed scheme is not application or device specific which means it can be implemented on any communication node on the grid. The scheme uses an algebraic code based cryptosystems known as GPT (Gabidulin -Paramonov-Trejtakov), which provides a very strong protection while utilising the smallest key size as compared to other cryptosystems based on algebraic codes. As with other code based cryptosystems, the proposed security framework protects grid information against cyber threats as well as against channel impairments in the form of error protection codes. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.