A Cryptographic Method for Defense Against MiTM Cyber Attack in the Electricity Grid Supply Chain

Conference · 24 April 2022 · 2022 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/isgt50606.2022.9817541· OSTI ID:1997526

Paul, Shuva ^[1]; Chen, Yu-Cheng ^[1]; Grijalva, Santiago ^[1]; Mooney, Vincent John ^[1]

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1. Georgia Institute of Technology,School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,Atlanta,Georgia,USA,30345

Critical infrastructures such as the electricity grid can be severely impacted by cyber-attacks on its supply chain. Hence, having a robust cybersecurity infrastructure and management system for the electricity grid is a high priority. This paper proposes a cyber-security protocol for defense against man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks to the supply chain, which uses encryption and cryptographic multi-party authentication. A cyber-physical simulator is utilized to simulate the power system, control system, and security layers. The correctness of the attack modeling and the cryptographic security protocol against this MiTM attack is demonstrated in four different attack scenarios.

• Research Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER)
• DOE Contract Number: CR0000004
• OSTI ID: 1997526
• Report Number(s): DOE-GATECH-00004-7
• Journal Information: 2022 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT), Conference: 2022 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT) New Orleans, LA, USA 24-28 April 2022
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English