Key Management Systems For Smart Grid Advanced Metering Infrastructure: A Survey

This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/COMST.2019.2907650, IEEE
Communications Surveys & Tutorials
Key Management Systems for Smart Grid

Advanced Metering Infrastructure: A Survey
Amrita Ghosal and Mauro Conti, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Smart Grids are evolving as the next generation loss/restoration. The smart grids deploy sensing devices that is
power systems that transform the traditional ways of functioning responsible for observing the performance of the system along
of present electrical grids. Advanced Metering Infrastructure with detection of any operational glitches. Upon detection of
(AMI) is one of the key components in smart grids. An AMI
comprises of systems and networks, that are responsible for any failure, control messages are transmitted from the sensing
collecting and analyzing data received from smart meters. In devices to the control center. As the smart meters are located
addition, AMI also manages the different applications related far from the utility, therefore, the data of the smart meters are
with power and services based on the data collected from routed to the utility via intermediate devices. The function of
smart meters. Thus, AMI plays a significant role in the smooth the gateways (also called concentrators), is to collect the data
functioning of smart grids. Malicious adversaries have immense
opportunities for attacking the AMI, as it is made up of of the smart meter and send it to the utility using Wide Area
systems that are highly vulnerable to such attacks. Providing Network (WAN) connection. The gateways also propagate
security to AMI is necessary as adversaries can cause potential control information to the smart meters.
infrastructural damage and privacy threats in smart grid. One For realizing the two-way communication [5], [6], [7] the
of the most effective and challenging topic’s identified, is the Key architecture of smart grid is developed in manner such that,
Management System (KMS), for sustaining the security concerns
in AMI. Therefore, KMS seeks to be a promising research area the sensing devices, gateways, the smart meters and the control
for future development of AMI. centers are present in the route between the customers and the
To the best of our knowledge, this survey is the first to highlight power suppliers. The designing of smart grid encompasses
the significance of key management system for the security point many factors, but in general, synchronization between the
of view for AMI in smart grids. We believe that we have taken fields of communication, control and optimization is very
here the needed initiatives that will help understand the impor-
tance of key management in AMI security, and strengthen future much required. From the ideal view point, the design of smart
research works carried out in this area. This survey highlights grid must provide for adaptability, reliability and prediction is-
the key security issues of advanced metering infrastructures and sues. The designing process should also take into consideration
focuses on how key management techniques can be utilized for the challenges involved, such as variations in demand and load
safeguarding AMI. At first, we discuss the main features of handling, security, optimization of asset and cost, performance
advanced metering infrastructures, the deployment scenario of
smart grids and identify the relationship between smart grid and power of self-healing [8]. In general, a smart grid commu-
and AMI. Then, we explore the main features of AMI, and also nication system is composed of a combination of one or more
introduce the security issues and challenges. We also provide a regional control centers. Multiple power plants and substations
discussion on the role of key management in AMI, and point out are supervised by each center [5]. Figure 1 shows the structure
the differences between traditional electrical systems and smart of a smart grid communication system that does data collection
grids. We then classify and provide a review of the existing works
in literature that deal with secure key management system in and control of electricity delivery. The smart grid consists
AMI. Finally, we summarize the possible future open research of components such as, regional control center, substation,
issues and challenges of KMS in AMI. smart metering system and power plants [9]. The regional
Index Terms—Advanced Metering Infrastructure, Key Man- control center performs the task of supporting the metering
agement System, Smart Grid, Smart Meters. system, data management, operations of the power market
and data acquisition control. The components of a substation
are Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) [10], [11] circuit breaker,
I. I NTRODUCTION
log servers, human machine interfaces, communication devices
MART Grids are revolutionizing the conventional services
S provided by present electrical grid systems through the use
of information technology [1], [2]. Also, maximum utilization
and gateways (data concentrators). Intelligent electronic de-
vices that are basically field devices, consist of transducers,
phase measuring units, tap changers and protection relays [5].
of information technology is done in smart grids for achieving
system efficiency and reliability [3]. Smart grids consist of
power generation and transmission utilities in addition to, A. Global Outlook
appliances, meters, sensing devices, information gateways that Since the past few years, several countries worldwide,
operate in near real-time [4]. The smart meters perform the brought in mandatory legislations for adoption of smart me-
tasks of collection of energy consumption, sending price tering networks for enabling clean energy initiatives [12]. In
information report to customers and informing about energy the EU, the EU member states have committed for roll-out of
nearly 200 million smart meters for electricity by 2020 as a
Amrita Ghosal and Mauro Conti are with Department of Mathematics,
University of Padua, Via Trieste 63, Padova, Italy, 35121 (e-mail: am- part of the third energy package resolution. Research shows
rita.ghosal@math.unipd.it, conti@math.unipd.it). that by 2020 almost 72% of the European consumers will have
1553-877X (c) 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/COMST.2019.2907650, IEEE
Substation Power Plant 80 million residential customers in Japan are expected to have

smart meters installed in their homes by 2024. TEPCO, one
Circuit of the main power utilities in Japan announced the roll-out
Breaker RTU
RTU
program from 7 million to 27 million smart meters, more
Data Acquisition
specifically, for household consumers. Installations started in
Control the year 2014 and are expected to be completed by 2021.
Power System Power Market The Australian government mandated the roll-out of the smart
Operations Operations
metering program in 2009 which ended in 2013 with 2.8
million installation of smart meters having radio frequency
Database mesh technology and WiMAX. Pilot projects are taking place
Operation Data Regional Control
Management Centre
in India for setting the stage for widespread deployment of
smart meter, expecting to ultimately be more than 150 million
Smart Metering new devices. Smart meter installation started in New Delhi in
System
2008 and continued to deploy 500,000 smart meters till 2011.
Analysis of industry reports reveal that India will install 130
million smart meters having both Power Line Communication
Distribution
Management (PLC) and wireless technologies by 2021 [21].
System
Serial

Data Tables
Port
Communication
Board MDMS B. Smart Grid and Advanced Metering Infrastructure
Meter Board
Consumer
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) [22], that also
Smart Meter Concentrator Information goes by the name “smart metering” [23] is a critical com-
System
Advanced Metering Infrastructure ponent, that necessitates the realization of the vision of
“Smart Grid”. In general, AMI consists of the smart me-
Fig. 1. A Smart Grid Communication System. ters [24], [25], [26] concentrators and the Meter Data Manage-
ment System (MDMS) [27]. The smart meters consists of the
communication board and the meter board that are connected
smart meters for electricity [13], [14]. The EU has already using a serial port. The communication board handles the task
launched 400 smart grid projects, out of which about 90 of communicating with external nodes such as collectors or
projects deal with smart metering roll-outs [15]. It is estimated home appliances for execution of the required computations.
that over 237 million smart electricity meters will be installed Important information in the form of keys and passwords
across Europe by 2020. Likewise, in the U.S., the Smart Grid required for securing communication, are stored in the set of
investment grant program under the American Recovery and tables present in the meter board. The power consumption
Reinvestment Act of 2009 facilitates deployment of large scale measurements are also performed by the meter board. The
deployment of smart metering infrastructures [16]. An instance communication board uses an interrupt based mechanism for
shows that electric utilities in the U.S. in 2016 had about 70 obtaining data or other needed information from the meter
million smart metering infrastructure installations, of which board. The data is then finally sent to the utility by the
88% were household consumers. The United States is another communication board. The MDMS is an essential component
large market of smart electricity meters. in AMI and basically serves as a database for long term data
In Canada, more than 6 million smart meters were installed storage and management of events and data usage.
in 2014 and the number is expected to increase by 2016, AMI also facilitates two-way communication [8], [28] be-
where two thirds of the households in Canada will have smart tween meter and distribution system operator. The two-way
meters [17]. Many places in Canada, such as, Ontario, British communication facilitates operations of many services for the
Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Quebec have already imple- distribution system operator that were nearly impossible to
mented or intend to implement a SM roll-out [18]. Till date, implement without smart metering. For example, power outage
the most successful deployment identified is the Ontario Smart is detected faster by system operator and without interaction
Metering initiative, having nearly 4.5 million installations of with the customer. Another service provided by smart metering
smart meters. For the Asia-Pacific region, China is by far the is reporting the quality of the power delivered. Smart metering
country having the largest number of installed smart meters. also enables detailed monitoring of power flows within the
The study in [19] reveals that the growth of installed base of distribution system that was previously available only at the
smart meters will increase to 377 million units by 2020 in substation level. Monitoring of power flows is important as
China. In China, the 12th five year plan Energy Development, it enables energy suppliers to react quickly on variations in
and the Strategic Action Plan on Energy Development (2014- consumption levels. The power flow monitoring information
2020) [20] carries out the smart grid deployment program. is also useful for real-time pricing, that is handled by one
It is expected that the installation figures of smart meters technology in smart grid known as Demand Side Manage-
in China will double by 2020. In Japan, the government ment (DSM) [29]. Recent advancements on smart metering
has set a target for about 80% of the nationwide electricity technologies in smart grid have made several utilities and
consumption to be monitored using smart meters. The rough states to induce different time-based pricing initiatives. For
instance, the Illinois power company in the United States, accountability can be ensured through a timely response
many critical peak pricing projects in California and New to the command and control, etc.
Jersey used a day ahead time pricing tariff. Recent works To meet the security requirements stated above, crypto-
on smart metering have revealed that exposing end use graphic countermeasures must be deployed. In AMI, cryp-
consumers to hourly real-time prices is the most efficient tographic mechanisms are provided for by an efficient key
technique to make the consumers consume electricity wisely management [33], [34]. If key management is not satisfactory,
and efficiently [30]. Additionally, in other countries such as, it may cause exposure of keys to attackers, and hamper the
Denmark, Italy, Sweden, France, companies are replacing secure communications in AMI [35]. Therefore, key manage-
conventional meters with meters capable of giving real-time ment is a critical process and can be used as a defensive mech-
pricing. The utility NRGi in Denmark installed about 200,000 anism against threats and vulnerabilities [36]. Generally, AMI
smart meters with a Home Area Network (HAN) interface for involves the security requirements for confidentiality, integrity,
enabling energy awareness. In Italy, the distribution company and availability [37], [38]. Prior to AMI deployment, the
of Enel group through their Telegestore project replaced old primary security requirements such as protecting the privacy of
mechanical meters with an automated system that can protect customers by confidentiality, ensuring message authentication
the delivery system from frauds and energy theft, reducing for meter readings and Demand Response (DR) [39], must
the costs for interventions and improving the accuracy and be provided. Encryption and authentication protocols, rely
efficiency of the billing process. Therefore, real-time pricing heavily on the security of cryptography keys for ensuring
was improved by implementing the Telegstore project. The confidentiality and integrity.
Swedish company Sundsvall Elnat AB is trying to install a
smart meter consisting of a simple display at the customers
C. Contributions and Organization
premises. In France, the 300,000 smart meters installed by
Enedis Operator will communicate to in-home devices using In AMI systems, key management for a large number of
Zigbee interface. All these findings showcase that, gradually devices is very much essential for security preservation of
the concept of real-time pricing is coming into effect, mainly cryptographic keys. Recently, several studies were conducted
for the beneficial effects on the end consumers. Real-time related to the Key Management System (KMS) [35], [40],
pricing may be possible if energy costs is made variable, [41] of AMI, a vivid description of the same is provided in
depending on the information of the present current power Section III. Existing surveys on smart grids discussed topics
flow. This particular feature of the demand side management, on cyber security [3], protection [6], smart metering [29],
provides the energy supplier to influence direct and immediate communication [32], architectures [42], and applications [43].
energy consumption [31]. Different from [3], [6], [29], [32], [42], [43], this survey work
The use of wireless communication in AMI leads to security deals with key management systems for smart grid in AMI,
issues in such systems. There are several security issues with a very critical area where very less attention has been paid
regard to AMI that needs attention, ranging from the consumer to. Unlike the existing survey works, this survey showcases
level to the generation as well as the producer level. The the importance of AMI in smart grids and also focuses on the
adversary can launch an attack by sending false signals to key management system that plays a defensive role in AMI
meters that may lead to power outage in a particular area as against threats. To the best of our knowledge, this survey is
well as disturb the demand generation model. The adversary the first to demonstrate the importance of key management
can also make use of the study of the utilization pattern of the system related to security concerns of AMI in smart grid. The
consumers for devising new forms of attacks. novelty of this survey is in the classification of the existing
Similar to other existing systems, AMI too needs to adhere works and outlining of future research in key management
with the requirements of the security primitives of confiden- system of AMI. The main contributions of this survey are:
tiality, integrity, availability [32] and non-repudiation. • We discuss the significance of AMI in smart grids as well
• Confidentially is preserved in AMI by ensuring that and provide a classification for the current state-of-the-art
the energy consumption pattern of consumers are not works in key management systems of AMI.
revealed to unauthorized entities. • We provide a comprehensive discussion on the system
• Integrity is maintained in the system through detection structure of AMI, followed by the issues and challenges
of illegal data alternation. faced by AMI.
• Availability requires the accessibility of data by an au- • We classify the existing works in literature, based on their
thorized user on demand. If the required data is not found commonality in approaches.
at the time of need, the system violates the availability • We present a comparative study for the existing works in
aspect of the security requirement of the system. Any key management system schemes in AMI, considering
natural or intentional incidents (such as hacking) must not communication, computation and storage overheads as
hamper the system from operating correctly. For example, performance metrics. The metrics chosen for the compar-
if the hacker wants to jam the network, the system must ative analysis reflects the efficiency of the corresponding
comply with the availability aspect. scheme.
• Accountability (non-repudiation) means an action that • We present promising directions for future research in
cannot be denied, i.e., the entities cannot deny the re- smart grids, particularly in the area of advanced metering
ceiving or transmission of data. In the AMI network, infrastructure where further research is required.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II,
Smart Meter
Smart Meter
description of AMI system features, followed by security Concentrator Concentrator
challenges and the role of key management system in AMI
are carried out. The classified approaches for existing key
management systems in AMI are discussed in Section III. In
Section IV, we present a comparative study for the current
state-of-the-art key management schemes proposed for smart
CIS OMS
grid AMI. Finally, we identify the future directions and
provide conclusion in Section V and Section VI, respectively.
MDMS
II. BACKGROUND
This section provides an insight into the Advanced Metering DMS GIS
Infrastructure including the system features (Section II-A) Operation Centre
together with the various security challenges (Section II-B)
involved in such a system. We discuss the role of key man-
Smart Meter
Smart Meter
Concentrator Concentrator
agement systems in AMI in Section II-C.
A. AMI System Features

1) Introduction: The Advanced Metering Infrastructure is
referred to as the system responsible for collecting, measuring Fig. 2. AMI Communication Architecture.
and analyzing the use of energy of networks that are connected
User Side
to the smart meters. The components that make up an AMI
are software, hardware, customer associated systems, commu- Distributed Energy Local Control Distributed Energy Local Control
Resources (DER) Devices Resources (DER) Devices
nication networks and a MDMS [44], [45], [46]. Similar to
other systems, the smart grid AMI also faces both internal
Home (Local) Area Home (Local) Area Smart Meter
and external security threats. The utility services of AMI Smart Meter/User Network
User Gateway Network
Gateway
provided to customers should ensure that the adapted secu-
rity technologies are not vulnerable to adversarial activities.
Deploying AMI in smart grid should guarantee confidentiality Wide Area Communications Infrastructure
of user privacy along with authentication for meter readings

and control messages.
AMI Head End
A traditional AMI communication architecture shown in
Fig. 2, has a centralized MDMS surrounded by the main Enterprise Bus
operation and management services. The MDMS comprises

of analytical tools that facilitates the interaction between Consumer
Outage Distribution
Distribution
MDMS Management Management
operation and management systems including Outage Manage- Information System System System
Automation System
ment System (OMS), Geographic Information System (GIS),

Management
Consumer Information System (CIS) and Distribution Man- To other Side
systems
agement System (DMS).
2) AMI System Structure: An AMI is perceived as an Fig. 3. AMI System Structure.
infrastructure that integrates several technologies for achieving
certain specific objectives. Figure 3 describes the components
of the AMI system structure that are briefly discussed below: and medias such as power line communication system and
Smart Meters (SMs): Electrical meters that perform the op- cellular networks [49].
erations of providing two-way communication [47], collection Meter Data Management System (MDMS): This is a
of automated meter data, outage management and dynamic database system used for storage, management and analysis
pricing. of metering data for providing better customer services [50].
Distributed Energy Resources (DERs): Electricity genera- Demand Response (DR) Program: It is basically an agree-
tion systems that are small scale and renewable and are used ment between the utility and its customers. The agreement
for storing energy and in homes [48]. provides for ensuring the customer of reduction in tariffs or
Gateways (GWs): Execute the task of accomplishing conver- discounts in the electricity bill, on the condition that he agrees
sion of protocol and communication among two heterogeneous to reduce his electricity consumption in response to signals
networks. Examples of gateways are home area network and received by the grid. The basic concept of the demand response
wide area network. program is that if every customer conserves a little, there will
Wide Area Communication Infrastructure: Performs the task be enough power for everyone [29]. The different demand
of bidirectional communication between the costumer domain response programs that are currently existing have their own
and the utility system. Such infrastructures use architectures policies in terms of rewards, penalties and consumer notifica-
tion policies. The benefits of all these demand programs are consumption in household appliances. The specialty of PEB is
same irrespective of their particular characteristics. that it sends the latest electricity consumption measurements
From communication perspective, the AMI comprises of the to a server in real time using Wi-Fi interface. PEB is also
following networks: efficient in appliance health monitoring [64].
Home Area Network (HAN): This type of network
connects smart meters and smart devices within home
B. AMI Security Challenges
premises [42], [51]. It also provides low cost monitoring and
control of the electric devices to reduce energy consumption. With the rapid growth in the development of smart grids
Both low range wired and wireless technologies are used for especially in the context of smart cities, have led to further
building such networks, though wireless technologies such advancement in technologies such as AMI used in such
as 802.11 wireless networking protocol, ZigBee and Home- systems. Security challenges in AMI [65] can in general result
Plug [52] are more dominant. The smart meters are made from three different aspects: privacy preservation of end users,
up of many sensors and data sources. Lightweight security system resilience against cyber attacks and power theft. The
mechanisms are needed for the sensors used in the smart technical challenges that need to be addressed by the smart
meters as they are generally resource constrained [53]. grid, is discussed in this section.
Wide Area Network (WAN): This network performs the task 1) Privacy Preservation of End Users: The security issues
of connecting an AMI end in the local utility network and a related with smart grid and AMI continue to scale up consider-
data concentrator [54], [55]. Data is collected from a group ably with increase in smart meters usages, both from internal
of SMs by the data concentrator. The data concentrator is as well as external part of the system. The consumers’ life
responsible for sending the collected data to the headend. style can be exposed from the information obtained from the
The information exchanges between external systems, such as consumers’ electric energy consumption, resulting in a critical
MDMS and AMI network is performed by the AMI headend. situation. Examples of leakage of critical information can be
Neighborhood Area Network (NAN): It is mainly formed in the form of, alarm and security systems used, number
by combining a number of HANs. In this network,several of people living in a house, time of occupancy, appliance
necessary information such as, security alarm and data of types, security and medical emergencies. Many studies have
power consumption are transmitted for achieving energy man- shown how vital information is obtainable by use of consumer
agement [54], [43]. profiling [66], [67]. Some work, such as [68] introduced
Smart Meter Gateway (SMGW): It is the central commu- techniques for improving the privacy protection of consumers
nication component of smart grid infrastructure. The gateway data. The method used in [68] mainly reshapes the overall
forms a connection between a WAN and a network of devices pattern of data such that it is impossible to differentiate
of one or more smart meters. The communication between the between load patterns and signatures.
consumer and is consuming and generating devices are main- For expansion of AMI, consumers satisfaction is very much
tained and secured from physical attacks by the SMGW [56]. important. If poor service or power quality is experienced
The security module of SMGW performs the task of providing by the consumers, because of external factors such as, data
authentication and aggregation of messages sent by the meters alteration by unauthorized parties or hackers, then, they may
to the control center [57]. provide hindrance toward the implementation of AMI. At
3) Appliance Load Monitoring: Recently, the issues related the consumer side, the price signal and commands that are
to the energy conservation and efficiency in smart grid have available, are also possible areas where physical and attacks
gained a significant importance from both consumer and may occur with the intention of destructing infrastructure or
energy supplier point of view. To address these issues, the power theft. Also, long distance transmission and storage of
researchers developed Appliance Load Monitoring (ALM) data for retransmission or analysis, makes the data susceptible
techniques [58], [59]. The main objective of ALM is to in terms of data theft or manipulation [8]. Considering all these
monitor and estimate the energy demand of each appliance factors, the government is working meticulously to guarantee
in smart home. There are two categories of ALM, namely, information privacy of customers.
Intrusive Load Monitoring (ILM) and Non-Intrusive Load 2) System Resilience Against Cyber Attacks: Cyber security
Monitoring (NILM) [58]. In ILM, one or more than one sensor is gaining importance in smart grid due to rising chances
per appliance is used to perform ALM. On the contrary, in of cyber attacks and incidents in such power grids. Cyber
NILM, a centralized point is used to perform ALM in each security needs to address the deliberate attacks arising from
appliance per home or building. The main advantage of ILM dissatisfied employees, industrial spying, and terrorists. From
over NILM is that the more accurate load monitoring capa- the vulnerability view point, the attacker has the opportunity
bility of ILM. However, due the high installation complexity of entering into a smart grid network, and devise mechanisms
and cost of ILM, NILM techniques are more popular than to destabilize the grid in different ways that are highly unpre-
ILM for large scale deployments. Considering the advantage dictable. A smart meter is expected to retain its own digital
of NILM for large scale deployments, number of works [60], credential and thereby guaranteed to obtain secure connections
[61], [62] were done to improve the performance of NILM with the smart meter network. Even if a particular smart meter
based approaches in a realistic environment. In one such is compromised, the adversary should not be able to obtain
work, researchers developed a smart electricity meter [63], critical information of other meters or gain access into the
called Powerley Energy Bridge (PEB), to measure electricity AMI of the smart grid.
The cyber security threats existing in the perspective of the generation are technically more easily justifiable, than those
general requirements for AMI security are summarized below: that occur during transmission and distribution. Losses can
also be categorized as technical loss and non-technical loss.
• Confidentiality: Confidentiality as from the perspective
Power dissipation in electrical lines and components lead to
of AMI is perceived protecting the privacy of con-
technical loss. On the other hand, detection and prevention
sumer’s information and consumption pattern. Therefore,
of non-technical loss during transmission and distribution
the system must provide for keeping the consumption
of electricity is difficult, thereby, leading to a major utility
information confidential. Also, the physical tampering of
problem. The use of electro-mechanical meters in traditional
smart meter to illegally access the stored data as well as
systems have minimum security features and are prone to
using other means of unauthorized access to the data by
manipulation. Electro-mechanical meter thefts are detected
other mechanisms should be prevented [69]. At AMI head
using the methods of direct connection to distribution lines
end, confidentiality of customer information should be
and grounding the neutral wire [71]. The use of smart meters
maintained by allowing only authorized access to specific
in advanced grids resulted in elimination or reduction in the
data sets.
above mentioned issues of electro-mechanical meters.
• Integrity: Integrity with respect to AMI is applicable for
Certain techniques for power theft are not associated with
data transmission from meter to the utility and control
the direct intervention with the meter. One example of such
commands from utility to the meter. Integrity refers to
technique is tampering of the current transformer. Current
the mechanisms involved for preventing alterations in
transformers perform the matching operation of grid current
the data received from meter, and in the commands sent
rating with the meter rating for meters of large loads. Though
to the meter [70]. The hackers possess a threat to the
the secondary side wires of current transformers are gen-
system integrity as they can launch attacks by pretending
erally insulated, but still there is a possibility of harming
to be authorized entities. Smart meters are robust against
the insulation and wire tapping. The tapping of the wires
cyber or physical attacks, compared to electromechanical
lead to erroneous meter readings. Another indirect method of
meters. Smart meters must have the capability of ignoring
power theft, is by exchanging the position of damaged wires,
the control commands raised due to cyber attacks and
resulting in phase shift and modifications in the meter reading.
preserve the system integrity.
Some techniques used in electro-mechanical meters for
• Availability: The availability issue in AMI changes,
stealing, is also applicable in systems with smart meters
depending on the type of information communicated in
and AMI too. One such technique is data tampering. The
the system. The non-critical data can be collected keeping
occurrence of data tampering can happen during data storage
the time intervals longer, and instead of using actual data,
in the meter, data collection and during data transition across
estimated ones are used. In some scenarios, necessitates
the network. Data tampering due to collection is applicable for
the collection of actual values in minimum time. The
both smart and conventional meters. Data interference during
prime factor for data unavailability in AMI is failure of
storage and transition is only applicable for smart meters.
the component. The causes of component failure may be
Compared to conventional electrical systems, the use of data
from problems arising due to software or due to meter
loggers in AMI results in difficulty in tampering meters. The
tampering resulting out of human intervention. Another
loggers record the power outages to the meter as well power
reason for unavailability in AMI can be communication
flow inversion. Thus, attack techniques involving inversion
failure. The reasons for communication failure include,
or disconnection, also need to remove logged events in the
network traffic, path degeneration, interference, band-
meter. The smart meter stores data of various types, such as,
width loss, etc.
time of use tariffs, event logs, executed or received commands
• Accountability: It refers to the fact that data receivers
and the firmware. Attackers that are able to access the smart
will not deny receiving of data and vice versa. Thus,
meter data, get all the vital information from the stored data.
entities not receiving any data, cannot claim that they
Data manipulation in another way can take place during its
have done so. In AMI, accountability is significantly
transmission over the network. Adversaries may launch attacks
important from the view point of finance and control
by injecting false data or by communication interception while
signal responses. The primary concern for accountability
the data is in transit.
requirement is due to the components in AMI being
Apart from the security issues and challenges discussed
manufactured by different vendors and owned by dif-
above which are common for both wired and wireless networks
ferent entities. Synchronizing the time and precise time
in AMI [72], we also discuss below the issues and challenges
stamping of information are also necessary in the AMI
that exist from the aspect of wireless networks in AMI of
network for ensuring accountability. The most common
smart grids.
method of accountability maintenance is through audit
Radio waves reception problem: The problem of radio
logs. For accountability with respect to smart meters, all
waves reception is a major challenge in wireless communi-
metered values, modifications in tariffs should be made
cation. The radio waves reception problem occurs when the
accountable as they are form the basis for billing.
waves are not received at the expected place and time. In AMI,
3) Power Theft Prevention: Occurrence of electrical losses meter data recorded by the smart meter is collected by the
can be in any of the stages of generation, transmission, gateway and finally sent to the respective power company. Any
distribution, and utilization. Losses that take place during problem in the communication path between the smart meter
and the gateway, hinders the receiving of the recorded data. It network. It should be capable of adding or removing devices
is not feasible to deploy large number of gateways along the without the use of manual reconfiguration.
communication path to evade the problem of non-reception
of recorded data. Therefore, communication paths should be
C. Role of Key Management Systems in AMI
configured such that radio waves arrive at the gateway after
being sent from the smart meter. As mentioned in Section I, AMI is a new emerging tech-
Transmission delay: As the transmission speed of wireless nology for smart grid, and is defined as the system used
communication is lower than that of fixed-line communication, for collection, measurement, storage, and analysis of usage
transmission time gets longer. Besides, when various meters of energy data [73]. It also facilitates in building a bridge
generate data randomly, their radio waves interfere and do not between consumers and electric power utilities. For delivering
reach the receiver side. The problem of transmission delay the future needs, certain techniques used in smart grids, expose
needs to be minimized for time critical smart grids. them to cyber security threats. Similar to other systems, the
Hidden node problem: Similar to other wireless networks, cyber security requirements of AMI must adhere to the needs
the hidden node problem can also occur in AMI. The hidden of protecting confidentiality, integrity, and availability. There-
node problem hinders communication and prevents timely fore, before AMI deployment, the major security requirements
transmission of data to relevant receivers. as stated above, need to be provided. Earlier findings by
Radio waves collision: The problem of radio waves collision researchers have demonstrated that key management plays a
prevents the collection of the transmitted data to be 100%. vital role in providing security to networks and communi-
To allow power companies to collect data with certainty, it cation systems. For example, the works in [74], [75] show
is necessary to devise mechanisms for avoidance of collision how key management helps to achieve secure group com-
radio waves. munication. Also, the authors in [76] cite the importance of
Attack vulnerability: Communication over a wireless net- key management in mobile adhoc networks. Therefore, using
work is vulnerable to attacks. An attack example scenario key management in AMI systems is very much significant
can be of an adversary reverse engineering the network pro- for providing protection to the different entities associated
tocol and disturbing the communication. Also, based on the with such a system. The key management system generally
knowledge of the protocol as well as the network structure, comprises of a key organizational framework, key generation,
the adversary may leverage injecting of modified traffic (e.g. refreshment, distribution, and storage policies [77].
modified power consumption data) into the network between Smart grid comprises of heterogeneous communication net-
the smart meter and the public utility system. works. The communication networks include, time-critical
Disruption threat: Disruption threat refers to interrupting the (e.g., for protection purpose) and non-real time (e.g., for main-
system from operating in the right way. For example, wireless tenance work) networks, small-scale (e.g., a substation system)
transmission among appliance, smart meter, and HAN gateway and large-scale (e.g., the AMI system) networks, wireless and
can be interrupted by an adversary through jamming. wired networks. Therefore, considering the practical scenario,
Distributed operation: A centralized communication archi- it will not be wise step to design a single key management
tecture in the smart grid may lead to bottleneck in the system, infrastructure for key generation and distribution, that caters to
as a large volume of data is generated and processed in such all networks in the smart grid. So, key management schemes
systems. Transmitting the high amount of data can develop in smart grids should be chosen judiciously, for fulfilling the
a congestion readily and thereby, a congestion control proce- network and security requirements for the different systems in
dure is needed. Also, the sensor nodes deployed in different smart grid.
locations of the power grid, cause scalability issues and a The traditional key management framework considers the
decentralized aggregation technique is very much required for use of single symmetric key among all users [3]. Though the
sensor measurements. So, the communication network should use of a single key is beneficial from the efficiency point of
be distributed to bypass a failure at the single point. view, it is the least secured mechanism for providing secure
High bandwidth: With the rapid expansion of smart grids, communication. If an attacker gets the key by compromising
new components are introduced into the network. Therefore, a device, it can very easily inject false information in the
bandwidth requirement becomes an important factor. For ex- entire network. In the existing metering system, the same
ample, even for a power distribution system of moderate symmetric key is shared between all meters. Also, existing
size, the bandwidth requirement is of 100Mbps and above. key management schemes for traditional power system, use
Bandwidth requirement can be compensated using optical neither a full-fledged key management infrastructure, nor
fibers or by using Ethernet passive optical network. support efficient multicast and broadcast that are essential for
Interoperability: The communication network should be smart grids [78]. Further improvement in key management
flexible such that it can communicate with different types schemes in existing power systems, did not support multicast
of sensors and actuators seamlessly. Also, there should be a communication as well as key revocation and updation issues
synergy between different communication technologies such remain unsolved [79]. Authors in [80] introduced an advanced
as PLC, fiber optic communications, and wireless communi- key management system for the traditional power system but
cations. failed to provide efficient multicast communication. Another
Scalability: The communication network should be scalable key management scheme designed by the authors in [81]
due to the presence of several sensors and actuators in the provided scalability but, added computational burden on the
power system as well as did not fully support multicast regeneration of the group key and additional values that
communication. Again, for the operation and management of are refreshed using unicast communication.
traditional power system, increased attention is provided to
supply-side compared to demand. It is assumed that consumers III. K EY M ANAGEMENT A PPROACHES
do not possess the capacity of actively modifying their con- According to [50], key management systems are an im-
sumption behavior, leading to huge demand during on-peak portant part of AMI that facilitates secure key generation,
periods. On the other hand, smart meters used in smart grids distribution and rekeying. Different approaches were adapted
make use of a real-time pricing concept, that takes care of the for ensuing efficient key management. In the literature authors
consumption behavior of the consumers. reported works that deal with the issue of key management
The key management schemes designed for AMI in smart
system. All these works are conducted through different
grids (described in Section III) support all types of communi-
approaches based on different secure key generation and
cation, i.e., unicast, broadcast and multicast. Also, the authors
distribution mechanisms. In this survey we categorize the
of the key management schemes designed for AMI provided
existing works, mainly into four categories, namely, key graph
for low communication, computation and storage overheads.
technique, encryption based technique, Physically Unclonable
Other advantages specific to the key management schemes are
Function (PUF) based technique and hybrid technique. In
mentioned in Section III.
Fig. 4, we provide a classification of the state-of-the-art works
1) Key Management in Different Transmission Modes:
in the area of KMS in AMI of smart grids, which we have
Messages in AMI can be classified into three classes based on
analyzed in the following sections.
their mode of transmission: unicast, broadcast and multicast.
• Unicast communication: Unicast communication uti-
lized in cases where message transmission takes place A. Key Graph Technique
from one point to the other, for example, reporting of By far, key graph technique is the most commonly used key
power consumption statistics by a smart meter and esti- management mechanism due to the ease of implementation
mation of future energy demands. Based on the different and efficient performance. The key graph technique can be
messages in AMI systems, the unicast transmission mode classified into two categories, namely, multi-group key graph
consists of three types of messages: meter data, joining technique and tree key graph technique. The following sub-
or leaving of demand response projects and remote load sections provide description of the works under the above
control. The messages are bidirectional: from user level mentioned classification.
side to the management side or vice-versa. 1) Multi-Group Key Graph: This section illustrates the
• Broadcast communication: Broadcast communication state-of-the-art works that adapted multi-group key graph
take place during message transmission from a single technique for secure key management in AMI.
point to all the other points in the network. A notable Authors in [83] secure unicast, broadcast and multicast com-
example of broadcast communication is a notification munications through implementation of scalable multi-group
message transmitted from utility system to smart me- key graph technique for key management in AMI. This work
ters indicating the information price in real-time. Two also safeguards the AMI security requirements. The multi-
types of messages are transmitted in broadcast mode, group key graph structure used here, supports the management
namely, publishing of DR projects and electrical pricing of multiple demand response projects concurrently for every
information. Before each broadcast session, refreshing of customer. Here, establishing the individual keys between the
the session keys should be done for ensuring message smart meters and MDMS is achieved by use of specific and
confidentiality and integrity. Broadcast communication secure exchange of cryptographic keys over a public channel.
makes it mandatory for periodic key refreshment as part The individual keys that are refreshed periodically are used in
of its key refreshing policy. two ways. In the first method, securing the unicast communica-
• Multicast communication: Multicast communication is tion takes place between MDMS and SMs, while the second
used in scenarios where messages are transmitted from a provides for secure multicast communications by generating
single point to a group of destination recipients simulta- the multi-group key graph. The MDMS is responsible for
neously. A typical example is, transmission of a remote generating a group key that is also refreshed periodically for
load control message from utility system to smart meters the DR project. The generation and transmission of group key
that are subscribers of the same DR project. Multicast takes place through secure channels for each SM.
communication [82] is used in AMI for message types The scalability issue is addressed using Logical Key Hier-
that include pricing information and remote load control. archy (LKH), where a key tree is used for every DR project.
The users subscribed to a DR project are not fixed In LKH, each member keeps a copy of its leaf secret keys
and therefore, it is required to update the group mem- and all other keys of the nodes in the path originating from
bers periodically who receive the multicast messages. its leaf to the root. The authors demonstrate that using their
In multicast communication, key management consists proposed LKH, scalability is ensured for large smart grids with
of two parts, where, one part has similarity with the dynamic demand response projects. Also, to reduce storage
broadcast communication. For the first part, before each and communication costs in key management, a multi-group
new session, the session key for multicast communication key graph structure is proposed in this work. The proposed
should be generated. The second part is involved with the key graph technique allows multiple DR projects to share a
Key Management Approaches
Authentication
Key Graph PUF Based Hybrid
Based
Technique Technique Technique
Technique
Enhanced Broadcast Advanced

Tree Key MultiGroup TwoLevel ID Based
IdentityBased Hash Chain Group Key Encryption
Graph Key Graph Encryption Encryption
Cryptography Management Standard
Example: Example: Example: Example: Example: Example: Example: Example:

Liu et al. [77] Benmalek et al. [35] Parvez et al. [89] Nicanfar et al. [87] Delavar et al. [91] Nabeel et al. [90] Wan et al. [50] Khasawneh et al. [4]
Yu et al. [85] Benmalek et al. [83]
Benmalek et al. [84]
Fig. 4. Taxonomy for Key Management Approaches in AMI.
new set of keys. The communication cost that occurs due key graph structure is proposed in this work. The key graph
to rekeying operations, is not significantly affected by the technique allows several DR projects to share a new set of
joining or leaving of a user of a DR project compared to keys. The two levels of lower and upper levels form the
that introduced by the use of separate LKH tree. In this model for the multi-group key graph structure. The lower
work the multi-group key graph structure is modeled as a level comprises of OFT that represent a set of users with the
two level graph. The lower level, signifies the user set having same first DR project subscription. An user’s individual key is
the same first DR project subscription. In the lower level, denoted by the leaf node, while the root of the tree represents
the leaf node of the tree denotes a user’s individual key and the group key of the DR project. The users subscribed to
the root of the tree is the group key of the DR project. The multiple DR projects concurrently, are represented by the
upper level graph represents the combinations of root keys for root key combinations in the upper level of the graph. Both
concurrent users subscribing to multiple DR projects. Authors backward and forward secrecies are supported by the proposed
claim that all these features ensure no redundancy in case key management scheme. Security and performance analyses,
of user subscription and payment for the same DR project and comparison results exhibit that the scheme induces low
multiple times. storage as well as low communication overheads.
In [84], the authors proposed a scalable multi-group key Authors in [41] proposed four key management schemes
management for AMI for securing data communications in that can simultaneously support security, scalability, efficiency
AMI. This work also supports key management in unicast, and versatility. The first scheme named as Versatile and
multicast and broadcast communications with the help of Scalable key management scheme for AMI (VerSAMI), is used
multi-group key graph technique. The simultaneous manage- in large-scale AMI system for ensuring secure unicast, mul-
ment of multiple DR projects for each customer, is supported ticast and broadcast communications. VerSAMI also supports
by the multi-group key graph structure used. Also, the authors the management of multiple DR programs. This is done to
demonstrate that this new structure is very much applicable provide flexibility to customers in terms of subscription to
in large scale smart grids with dynamic DR projects member- multiple DR programs simultaneously. Also, the customers can
ships. subscribe/unsubscribe to any DR program at any time. Here,
A particular method is used in this work for secure exchange the rekeying operations are handled efficiently using the multi-
of cryptographic keys over a public channel. The secure ex- group key graph technique, while meeting the constraints of
change of cryptographic keys is used between the MDMS and smart meters with respect to memory and bandwidth capac-
smart meters for individual key establishment. The individual ities. An improved version of VerSAMI, called, VerSAMI+
keys are refreshed periodically and utilized in two ways. The is also proposed by the authors, that provides enhancement
first method secures unicast communication between MDMS in communication overhead. The problems in VerSAMI as
and the SMs, while the second, provides the multigroup key well as VerSAMI+ that occured due to individual rekeying,
graph for secure multicast communication. A group key must and also to reduce the number of rekeying operations, another
be generated by the MDMS and refreshed periodically for the variant of VerSAMI, called Batch-VerSAMI was proposed by
DR project. The generation and transmission of the group key the authors. The alterations in memberships are handled in
for every smart meter is done through secure channels. Batch-VerSAMI in batches, instead of handling individually.
In addition, for simulating the AMI system behavior, the au-
The scalability issue is addressed by the use of the key
thors proposed a dynamic membership model. The efficiency
graph technique known as One-way Function Tree (OFT), that
of the proposed schemes are proved through security and
is improvised over the LKH protocol. In OFT, the MDMS
performance analyses, as well as simulations, performed with
and all users individually compute the group key. Recursive
existing schemes.
computation is done for computing the keys of the interior
nodes, from the keys of their children. For reducing storage 2) Tree Key Graph: This section describes the schemes that
and communication costs in key management, a multi-group use the tree key graph as the structure for the key management
10
Enterprise Bus
system in AMI.
Smart Meter/User MDMS
In [77], authors design a key management system for Gateway
Distributed Generation
dealing with the security requirements in AMI. The key ICNbased Demand Response
Home Area Management
management framework of the AMI system is developed with Customer Energy Network System
Management System
the help of the key graph. This work designed key management To Other Smart Meters or
Smart Device ICNbased
Wide Area AMI
Load Management
Communication Head
processes of three types for supporting the hybrid transmission User Gateways
Infrastructure End
System
modes that also include key management for unicast, broad- Distributed Generation User Gateway
Network Management
cast, and multicast modes. For minimizing the storage and ICNbased
System
Customer Energy Home Area
computation constraints of SMs, simple cryptographic algo- Management System Network Distribution
Automation
rithms are chosen for key generation and refreshing policies. Smart Device User Gateway
System
Designing of key refreshing policies are specific to the DR Customer Domain (CD)

Operation Domain (OD)
project, considering the inconsistencies in the number of mem-

bers in a DR project. Mainly the key management framework Fig. 5. ICN-AMI System Structure for Key Graph Technique.
based on the key graph concentrates on managing the keys
of a large number of SMs. The security and performance
analyses of the KMS demonstrate that the proposed scheme are used in the multicast transmission mode, namely, electrical
is a possible solution for AMI systems. The KMS is designed pricing information and remote load control. The messages
for collecting of the possible solutions, though the functions of are transmitted from operation domain to customer domain.
AMI vary. In reality, flexibility is given to users for choosing Depending on the users personal preferences, they can join
part of the KMS for specific applications. The characteristics or leave the project any time. The security and performance
of transmitted messages in the communication channels is analysis validate the correctness of the authors claims. The
decided by the function requirements. The authors designed simulation results also demonstrate that ICN-AMI system
key management processes of three types for unicast, broad- achieves better performance with respect to KMS design,
cast, and multicast communications, considering the types of attack resistance, mobility support and congestion control.
messages and function requirements for the required mode
of communication. Refreshing policies and key generation are B. Authentication Based Technique
designed specific to each process, considering computation and The key management system in AMI using encryption based
storage constraints of SMs. technique generally follows identity based cryptography and
In [85], the authors introduce Information Centric Network- two level encryption and mechanisms. The following sections
ing (ICN) in AMI systems and also proposed a key manage- discusses works that used authentication based technique for
ment scheme for large number of smart meters for ensuring KMS in advanced metering infrastructure.
confidentiality, integrity and authentication. The scheme is 1) Identity based cryptography: This section illustrates the
designed with an objective to ensure security, control network work that use identity based cryptography as the basis for
congestion and support mobility. The energy data in AMI KMS.
system needs to be kept secret as they can reflect the privacy Authors in [87], proposed a mechanism for mutual authenti-
of daily lives of people and habits. The use of ICN provides cation between a SM of a HAN and an authentication server in
for data integrity as well as authenticity and confidentiality. smart grid shown in Fig. 6. The work uses Enhanced Identity-
It is different from the protection available in end-to-end Based Cryptography (EIBC) [88] for securing the smart grid
communication as it depends on the protection of data itself. communications using public key infrastructure. EIBC is a
Here, secure message exchange for unicast, broadcast and modified version of the Identity-Based Cryptography scheme,
multicast is ensured. where the enhanced version significantly reduces the overhead
The ICN-AMI system structure shown in Fig. 5 develops the of key renewals. The key management protocol employs PKI
KMS frame structure by key graph similar to that of [86]. The for smart grid communications as specified by NIST. Also,
user key, the group key and the root key is used for unicast, the network overhead caused by control packets for key
mullticast and broadcast mode, respectively. The inherent fea- management is minimized. The results of the key refreshment
ture of digital signature in ICN’s provides for authenticity and protocol demonstrates that the security and authentication
integrity. Here, the transmission modes of unicast, broadcast server performs periodic broadcast of generation of new keys
and multicast, are provided data confidentiality by payload for refreshing the key pairs. The authors claim that their
encryption. For unicast transmission, four types of messages mechanisms are capable of preventing several attacks such
are used. The messages are for remotely controlling the load, as brute force, replay as well as capable of minimizing the
power notification for loss or restoration, leaving or joining management overhead. Security and performance analyses
DR projects and the data of meter reading. Broadcast mode is are presented that demonstrate the desirable attributes of the
utilized by messages having electrical pricing information and presented scheme.
released DR projects. Both these two types of messages are 2) Two level encryption: This section describes the work
sent from operation domain to customer domain. The root ses- based on two level encryption for key management system in
sion key provides for confidentiality in broadcast transmission AMI.
mode. On the other hand, the ICN proves the authentication, In [89], a key management scheme is proposed based on
integrity and availability by signature. Two types of messages two level encryption method. The encryption is based on two
11
PUF SoC
Security Server
Data Tables Communication
Controller Aggregator Serial Board
Communication
Meter Board
HAN SM
HAN SM Fig. 7. Smart Meter with a PUF SoC.
HAN SM
section mentions two such works in the area of PUF based

HAN SM KMS in AMI. One of them is based on broadcast group key
HAN SM management [90] while the other uses hash chain [91].
HAN SM
1) Broadcast Group Key Management: This section pro-
vides description for the work that utilizes the broadcast group
key management technique in PUF base KMS.
In [90], the authors provide an end to end security for AMI
HAN SM HAN SM HAN SM networks. The model used here is based on weak PUFs [92].
PUFs are used as security primitive for providing robust
Fig. 6. AMI System for Authentication Based Technique. hardware based authentication for smart meters and collectors.
Fig. 7 shows a smart meter with a PUF System on Chip (SoC)
that is used for this scheme. The initialization phase is utilized
partially trusted simple servers that implement this method by the utility for generating a pair of challenges and three
without increasing packet overhead. One server is responsible hash functions. The challenges are used for triggering the PUF
for data encryption between the meter and control center and responses, while, the hash functions are used for obtaining the
the other server manages the random sequence of data trans- hash codes and computing the symmetric key of the smart
mission. Authors further introduce one-class support vector meter. The proposed approach provides efficient solution to
machine algorithm for node-to-node authentication utilizing manage keys and a robust authentication mechanism. The
the location information and the data transmission history solution is developed using PUF devices that are cheap to
(node identity, packet size and frequency of transmission). manufacture and provide hardware based strong authentication
This mechanism helps in securing data communication privacy mechanisms against spoofing attacks. The one way function
without increasing the complexity of the conventional key of the hardware of the PUFs’ devices assist in generating
management scheme. This work is an extension of one of and regenerating of the access level passwords for smart
the earlier work’s of the authors. The extended work uses meters. Strong defense against key leakage is provided by
Received Signal Strength (RSS) and One Class Support Vector the PUF based secret generation method as the key is not
Machine (OCSVM) techniques for node to node authentica- stored in memory. For supporting multicast communications,
tion. RSS is used for localization of meters using the received this work utilizes Broadcast Group Key Management (BGKM)
signal strength from neighbouring meters. OCSVM is used for scheme [93], [94]. The BGKM scheme is a special type
detecting new and outlier data/packet, using current and pre- of group key management scheme that allows for efficient
vious data transmission history. Further, OCSVM based node communication of a group of nodes. The use of symmetric
authentication increases robustness in key management system key cryptography in BGKM does not make it computationally
without increasing any overhead and is easy to implement in intensive. The smart meter derives the group key from the
devices with limited memory and computational ability. The unique secret designated to it. The efficiency and scalability of
introduction of two separate servers for key management and the BGKM scheme is supported by its capability of addressing
random sequenced packet transmission enhances robustness in any group of nodes with a single message.
security in untrustworthy communication medium and servers. 2) Hash Chain: The work described in this section employs
Both qualitative and quantitative analyses reveal the scheme’s hash chain mechanism for PUF based KMS. Authors in [91]
efficacy in providing improvements in the key management devised mechanisms for authenticated key exchange protocol
schemes of AMI. and message broadcasting protocol utilizing the PUF technol-
ogy in communication parties. The PUF is embedded in the
head end system for key exchange protocol while in message
C. PUF Based Technique broadcasting protocol, it is embedded in the smart meters.
In contrast to key graph and hybrid techniques mentioned The PUFs are used for generating the commitments and
above, PUF based technique for secure key management in random numbers that are required for running the protocols.
AMI has not been exploited much in the literature. This The headend system and the smart meter exchange a session
12
key after mutual authentication. The key exchange protocol renewal. Advance Encryption Standard (AES) is used for the
comprises of four phases, namely, initialization, registration, data encapsulation cryptosystem, while, elliptic curve encryp-
mutual authentication and key exchange. The authors, in tion is employed for the key encapsulation cryptosystem. The
this work exploited the idea of hash chain and a modified modules of the proposed hybrid encryption cryptosystem are
version of Schnorr protocol [95] for developing an authen- symmetric encryption module, asymmetric encryption module
ticated broadcast messaging protocol for the AMI systems. and message integrity module. The encryption of AMI mes-
The proposed protocol allows for automatic authentication of sages using AES-128 is performed by the symmetric encryp-
the headend by the smart meters. Thereby, the smart meters tion module. The asymmetric encryption module encrypts the
are ensured that the message received is broadcast by the arbitrary key used by the symmetric encryption module. The
head end. The message broadcasting protocol consists of data encapsulation function is performed by the symmetric
three phases, initialization, registration and authentication. The encryption module, while the key encapsulation system is
security analysis of the proposed authenticated key exchange taken care of by the asymmetric module. Message integrity
protocol proves its efficiency in terms of security requirements module is used for generating the integrity code that enables
as well as the message broadcasting protocol is secured against detection of tampering of the secure message.
corrupted smart meters.
D. Hybrid Technique Start
Hybrid techniques for KMS provide for both symmetric Message
and asymmetric encryption for securing AMI in smart grids. Random

Hybrid techniques are grouped under two categories, namely, Generator
ID based encryption and advanced encryption standard. This Symmetric
Asymmetric Encryption Module
section provides description on potential works that deal with (AES)
Encryption Module
KMS using the hybrid techniques. (ECIES)
1) ID based encryption: The work in the following sec-
tion describes how ID based encryption assist in hybrid key
management in AMI.
Keyed Hashing
In [50], the authors proposed a hybrid KMS for AMI Module (HMAC)
through combination of public key and symmetric cryptosys- Database
tems. Authentication and session key generation is achieved
using elliptic curve cryptosystems. Also, the scheme makes
use of a specially designed key hierarchy for efficient gen- Key Derivation
Function Transmit
eration and updation of group keys. ID-based encryption is (SHA256) Encrypted AMI
used by the KMS and the key graph technique is employed Message
for efficient multicast key management. The primary benefit
of using ID-based encryption lies in the fact that no public Fig. 8. Hybrid Cryptosystem.
key certificate is required. The security issues of multicast key
management and end-to-end key establishment are the main
concerns of this work. The secure establishment of the session The messages transmitted using this proposed protocol has
keys with each smart meter is performed by MDMS. The the packet format as follows: the payload field stores the
resulting session keys provide for scalable and efficient group information needed for sending to the destination. The synch
key management for AMI. Security analysis and performance and clock tolerance fields perform the function of protection
evaluation for this scheme reveal that it is secure and efficient against reply attack. The synch field stores the message
for AMI in smart grid. timestamp corresponding to message creation time, whereas,
2) Advance encryption standard: The work in this section clock tolerance indicates the message validity time. The synch
employs advance encryption standard for key management field is compared with the current time on receiving a message.
systems in AMI. The message is considered replayed and is rejected, based
Authors in [4] proposed a hybrid encryption scheme as on the time difference between the synch and the current
shown in Fig. 8, that exploits symmetric and asymmetric en- time. The hybrid cryptosystem adds the encrypted arbitrary
cryptions for securing smart metering network. The proposed key to the message. The encrypted key is stored in the
method makes use of elliptic curve cryptography. The elliptic key field. Authentication ans message integrity is ensured by
curve cryptography introduces a precomputation stage for the Message Integrity Code (MIC). The MIC field helps in
minimizing the computation overhead through elimination of detection of a tampered message or a message originating from
the time needed to perform the scalar-point multiplication. The an unauthorized source. The results obtained demonstrate that
hybrid mechanism developed in this work, combines the public the scheme performs well in terms of computation, storage
key cryptography with the secret key encryption. A lightweight and communication overheads. Also, the scheme is capable of
key management scheme is proposed here for reducing the defending eavesdropping and traffic analysis attacks with the
overheads resulting due to key generation, distribution and help of message confidentiality.
13
IV. C OMPARATIVE S TUDY Table III and Table IV provide the comparative analy-
The objective of this section is to provide a detailed analysis sis of computation and communication costs, respectively
of the works that carried out efficient key management system of the various schemes. The computation cost of the key
of AMI in smart grids, in the perspective of both security management protocols are divided into four parts: end to
and performance analyses. In Table I, we summarize the end key establishment, initializing group, adding a member
terminologies that are used throughout the remaining of this and deleting a member for both MDMS and smart meter.
paper. Here, we provide brief descriptions of how computation costs
are derived by each of the schemes compared in Table III.
TABLE I In [35], the computation cost is derived from two sources,
N OTATION TABLE
namely, for establishing the end-to-end key protocol and the
Notation Description multicast key management protocol. The computation cost
n Number of smart meters for the end-to-end key establishment protocol involves the
Npr Number of DR projects calculation of two point multiplications, one bilinear pairing
mj Number of jth DR project member
N sub(ui ) The number of DR projects to which user ui subscribes and two hashes. The calculation is done by both the smart
|K| Size of the key in bits meter and the MDMS. The computation cost for the multicast
X N sub(ui ) key management protocol comprises of three parts: group
Y Npr − N sub(ui )
c log2 (Npr )
initialization, member addition and member deletion. The
hk Height of the new home DR project group initialization takes place only once in the proposed
h() Height of the one-way function tree scheme. In [77], the computation cost is for every device on
CP Cost for bilinear pairing the user side and one device for the management side. For each
CM Cost for the multipoint multiplication
Cε Cost for the encryption function ε device on the user side, the computation cost is formed due to
Cr Cost for generating one key symmetric cryptography algorithms, hash functions, and Hash
Cf Cost for evaluation of the one-way function Message Authentication Code (HMAC). The computation cost
A CP + CM
B Cε + Cf
in MS is also due to symmetric cryptography algorithms, hash
P (4n + 5) + Cf functions, and HMAC, same as that in the user side devices.
Q 4nCf Considering one example from Table III, the computation cost
of the scheme SKM, for initializing a group, is higher than
Table II highlights the security analysis of the various that of the scheme KMSSC. The results of Table III also
schemes. In this table, we provide an insight into how effi- reflect that, adding a member or evicting a member for the
cient the schemes are in comparison to each other by taking SKM scheme is much more efficient in comparison to KMSSC
into consideration certain security parameters. The parameters scheme. The scheme KMSSC does not mentions about the key
considered are key generation, key sharing, key freshness, establishment mechanism it uses, and so the cost involved for
forward and backward security, confidentiality, authentication the end-to-end key establishment protocol is unavailable.
and integrity. On the other hand, performance analysis of the The benchmarks provided in Table IV, demonstrate the
different schemes through computation cost, communication communication overhead of the different schemes. The com-
cost and storage cost are illustrated using three tables. parative study is done using unicast and broadcast com-
The processes of key generation, key sharing and key re- munication for both member addition as well as member
freshment referred in Table II, are carried out through multiple deletion. For calculating the communication costs, most of the
steps that involve communication between different entities works compared considered different cases of group member
of AMI. It is important to provide optimized communication addition/deletion in their proposed system. The authors in [83]
overhead for the processes of key generation, key sharing considered a multi-group key graph structure for securing
and key refreshment for time critical scenarios in AMI. Key the unicast, broadcast and multicast communication in AMI.
refreshing is dependent on users joining or quitting the DR For both cases of joining/leaving, the number of keys that
project. The group key is refreshed during the update, i.e., are updated depends on the position of the joining/leaving
when an user joins or quits the DR project. The forward member in the multi-group key graph. The leave procedure
secrecy refers to the fact that new users participating in a DR has three cases: case 1 is when the user leaves his home DR
project, should not be able to access previously used secret project and is subscribed to only one DR project, case 2 is
keys and messages. On the other hand, backward secrecy when a user leaves is home DR project but is subscribed to
implies that users who leave a DR project are unable to multiple DR projects simultaneously, while case 3 is when
access the future secret keys and messages. Forward secrecy, the user leaves one DR project which is not his home DR
in terms of group key management, refers to the fact that project. The communication cost for the join procedure occurs
evicted members will not have any knowledge of the new for two cases: the first is when a user joins his home DR
group key. With respect to group key management, backward project and the second is the joining of a new DR project
secrecy means that new members cannot gather any knowledge by the user which is not the home DR project of the user.
about previous group keys. Preserving forward and backward The authors in [84] also considered the various cases for the
secrecy should be guaranteed, considering the fact that users joining/leaving procedure of the members in the key graph
participating in DR projects are not consistent, and have the structure similar to [83] for calculating the communication
privilege of joining or leaving a DR project any time. cost. Similar to [83] and [84], the authors in [50] also consider
14
TABLE II
S ECURITY A NALYSIS
Scheme Key Generation Key Sharing Key Freshness Forward and Backward Security Confidentiality Authentication Integrity
MK-AMI [35] D 5 D D 5 5 5
eSKAMI [84] D 5 D D D 5 D
KMSSC [77] D D D D D D D
KMSSC-IC [85] D 5 5 D D D D
SEES [90] D 5 D D D D D
SKM [50] D 5 D D D D D
SAMI [83] D D D D D D D
TABLE III
C OMPUTATION C OST
End to End Key
Initializing a Group Adding a Member Deleting a Member
Scheme Establishment
MDMS SM MDMS SM MDMS SM MDMS SM
SAMI [83] n(A) A n(A) + nCr hCε h(B) + Cr h(B) h(B) + Cr h(B)
KMSCC [77] - - nCε Cε P + (n + 2)Cε Q + Cε P + (n + 2)Cε Q + Cε
SKM [50] n(A) A 2n(B) + nCr hCε h(Cε + 2Cf ) + Cr h(B) h(Cε + 2Cf ) + Cr h(B)
eSKAMI [84] n(A) A n(B) + nCr hCε h(B) + Cr h(B) h(B) + Cr h(B)
MK-AMI [35] n(A) CP + CM n(B) + nCr hCε h(B) + Cr h(B) h(B) + Cr h(B)
TABLE IV
C OMMUNICATION C OST
Communication Overhead
Scheme Member Addition Member Deletion
Unicast Broadcast Unicast Broadcast
SAMI [83] hj |K|+c |K|+c (hj + Npr − 1)|K| (hj + 2X + Y + hk )|K|+c
KMSCC [77] 2n|K| 0 2n|K| 0
SKM [50] h|K| h|K|+h 0 h|K|+h
eSKAMI [84] 2hj |K|+c |K|+c (2hj + Npr − 1)|K| (2hj + 2X + Y + 2hk )|K|+c
MK-AMI [35] hj |K|+c |K|+c (hj + Npr − 1)|K| (hj + 2X + Y + hk )|K|+c
the same joining/procedure for calculating the communication in Table III, Table IV and Table V. Authors in [83] proposed
cost. Taking one example from Table IV, the results reveal a scalable multi-group key management scheme that supports
that the scheme MK-AMI performs better than the scheme unicast, broadcast and multicast communications. The results
eSKAMI in terms of communication cost. of the scheme proposed in [83], produce low storage and
Table V provides the storage cost for the different schemes. communication overheads. The key management scheme pro-
The storage costs are calculated for both MDMS and smart posed in [77] also supports unicast, broadcast and multicast
meters. While the storage cost for MDMS is the same for communications in AMI. Due to insufficient key management,
all the schemes except KMSCC, the same is also true for the scheme in [77] is not able to provide scalability and also
the storage overhead in smart meters, except the schemes, suffers from packet loss during communication. In [50], the
KMSCC and SKM. The authors [83] calculate the storage authors developed multicast key management by combining
cost of their scheme based on the number of symmetric keys an adapted identity-based cryptosystem and one-way function
stored in the MDMS and smart meters. They also consider tree approach. The storage overhead is enhanced in [50] due
the individual keys, group keys and broadcast keys required to the use of separate one-way function tree for every demand
for unicast, broadcast and multicast transmissions. Authors response projects. Similar to [77] and [83], the work in [84]
in [77], provided the storage cost for every device on the user supports unicast, broadcast and multicast communications.
side and evaluate that the storage cost does not increase with The results of the work in [84] demonstrate that it induces
the number of devices on the user side in the AMI system. The low storage overhead without increasing the communication
storage cost is influenced by the increase in the number of DR overhead. The scheme [84] is based on a multi-group key
projects. Similar to [83], the authors in [84] also consider the graph structure which supports simultaneous management of
number of symmetric keys stored in the MDMS and smart demand response projects for every consumer. The proposed
meters for calculating the storage cost. In [35], the authors structure scales to smart grids consisting of dynamic demand
calculated the storage cost based on the number of keys stored response projects, as well as caters to the constraints of smart
in MDMS and smart meters, similar to that of [83] and [84]. meters with respect to memory and bandwidth capabilities.
We also discuss the pros and cons of the schemes compared
15
Authors in [35] proposed a scalable key management system for utilizing it further. CCN provides for paradigm shifting by
for AMI in smart grids. The scheme supports the management deviating the focus of communication from the residing area
of multiple and dynamic response projects concurrently for of information to what information is needed. The advantage
each consumer. But this scheme introduces extra communica- of CCN lies in the fact that it supports multicast mechanisms
tion overhead, compared to existing ones, such as, [50]. and deployment of in-network caching. Thus, information
is targeted towards the hosts who are actually interested,
TABLE V
S TORAGE C OST
rather than hosts with particular destinations. The in-network
caching of data in CCN improves network quality of services,
Scheme
Storage Overhead especially, delivery latency. The Content Centric Networking
MDMS SMi approach can be applied on AMI as a prospective future
PNpr
SAMI [83] 2 j=1 (mj − 1) + 1 log2 (|A|) + N sub(ui ) + 1 research area. Taking into consideration the caching advantage
KMSCC [77] n + Npr + 1 N sub(ui ) + 2
PNpr PN sub(ui ) of CCN, it is widely believed that CCN can effectively reduce
SKM [50] 2 j=1 (mj − 1) + 1 j=1 (log2 mj + 1) + 1
PNpr the AMI network bandwidth. So, CCN can play a major role
eSKAMI [84] 2 j=1 (mj − 1) + 1 log2 (|A|) + N sub(ui ) + 1
PNpr in the traffic control development for the AMI system. The
MK-AMI [35] 2 j=1 (mj − 1) + 1 log2 (|A|) + N sub(ui ) + 1
role of CCN in key management of AMI can be investigated
to analyze how much effective role it plays.
Defensive Mechanisms Against Threats and Attacks: AMI
V. OPEN RESEARCH ISSUES AND CHALLENGES in smart grids are very much exposed to several threats and
AMI network is large-scale communication network com- other vulnerabilities. AMI is an appropriate example of cyber
prising of utility companies, customers, and smart meters, physical systems comprising of different types of hardware,
across multiple smart grid domain. Regardless of the extensive communication devices and MDMS. Therefore, AMI is very
research efforts for ensuring security in AMI reviewed in this much exposed to cyber physical attacks. Smart meter net-
survey, there remains many issues and challenges that form works and MDMS software must have sufficient security to
potential research directions. Critical issues, such as, consumer prevent any unauthorized modifications related to software
privacy, attack vulnerabilities, and standardization are highly configurations, recorded data readings, etc. Another prevalent
correlated with the smooth operation of key management attack of AMI in smart grids is Denial of Service (DoS)
system of AMI in smart grids. This section presents some key attacks. These attacks are related with temporary or permanent
areas related to smart grids, in particular with key management disruption of communication link and preventing message
in AMI, that can be focused upon as future research ventures. transmission/reception by flooding/jamming. In DoS attacks,
Scalable Architecture: A scalable and pervasive communi- an adversary may forge the demand request of a smart meter
cation infrastructure is very much significant from the view- and keeps requesting a large amount of energy. Data integrity
point of both construction and operation of a smart grid. A attacks also affect the normal operation of AMI by altering
common feature of smart grid systems is that, a large amount data timings and false-data injection. Thus, attacks that are
of sensors are deployed over a wide area for implementing very much prevalent in AMI need further exploration, specially
the complex monitoring and control functions. Therefore, one with respect to key management and prospective solutions
prime challenge in smart grid is how to build a scalable AMI provided for defending such attacks.
communication architecture to handle the huge amount of Consumer Privacy and Security: Consumer privacy protec-
data generated by those sensors. A smart grid communication tion is a major requirement for present smart grid infrastruc-
infrastructure needs to provide scalability in terms of adding ture [96]. For this, smart meters should be equipped with latest
devices and services into it, as well as enhancing the real-time storage components having high security precisions. It should
monitoring of energy meters. It is evident that conventional not be accessed by unauthorized persons. The encrypted meter
cryptographic solutions do not meet the requirements of a data can only be decrypted by authorized personnels. The
smart grid, in terms of scalability and efficiency. Therefore, we protection of consumers privacy can also be made possible by
need scalable but secure and efficient schemes, tailored specif- making the load patterns and signatures indistinguishable to
ically for smart grid AMI communications. This will enable unauthorized entities [68]. Research in the area of providing
secure and efficient processing of meter reading data collec- consumer privacy and security is going on and smart meter
tion and message distribution management. Very few works, users need to be reassured that their data is secure. Also, there
such as [45], investigated the scalability issue of distributed is limited research on AMI authentication and confidentiality
architecture in AMI. Also, key graph techniques can be used of user data privacy and behavior that needs serious attention.
for addressing the scalability issue in AMI [35]. The proposed Efficiency: From literature, it is quite evident that key
works considering scalable distributed architecture have shown management system is an essential component for secured
promising outcomes with respect to key management of AMI. AMI in smart grids. The key management systems used in
Therefore, future work should emphasize in building robust smart grids must be scalable from the point of view that such
scalable distributed AMI communication architecture in smart grids contain devices in massive scale that exist in hundreds
grids. of organizations. Further, key management must offer strong
Content Centric Networking: Content Centric Networking security in terms of authentication and authorization, inter-
(CCN) is emerging as the fundamental paradigm for the organizational interoperability and ensure the highest possible
future Internet and research initiatives are being undertaken levels of efficiency to ensure that unnecessary cost due to
16
factors such as overhead, are minimized. It is very much smart grid security are identified. This key management system
evident that new and highly efficient key management systems analysis of AMI brings new and promising perspectives and
are needed. methodologies for future research in smart grid.
Role of AMI in Smart Cities: AMI could become one of
the defining aspects of the smart cities of the future. Its R EFERENCES
widespread adoption could lead to a major impact in the
efficient functioning of smart cities. The impact could be, [1] D. Wu and C. Zhou, “Fault-tolerant and scalable key management for
smart grid,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 375–
unlimited savings and greater ease of use for consumers at 381, 2011.
all income levels and suppliers of utilities, by harnessing real- [2] N. M. Pindoriya, D. Dasgupta, D. Srinivasan, and M. Carvalho, “Infras-
time data collection and consumer consumption patterns. If tructure security for smart electric grids: A survey,” in Optimization and
Security Challenges in Smart Power Grids, Springer, 2013, pp. 161–180.
smart cities of the future depend on wireless networks to [3] W. Wang and Z. Lu, “Cyber security in the smart grid: Survey and
meet their utility demands, they can expect lower costs and challenges,” Computer Networks, vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 1344–1371, 2013.
greater bandwidth. Wireless networks also have the capacity [4] S. Khasawneh and M. Kadoch, “Hybrid cryptography algorithm with
precomputation for advanced metering infrastructure networks,” Mobile
to collect data from devices that are digitally-dormant today, Networks and Applications, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 1–12, 2017.
as the existing IoT has shown that virtually everything can [5] Y. Yan, Y. Qian, H. Sharif, and D. Tipper, “A survey on cyber security
eventually be connected to the grid. Future works can be done for smart grid communications,” IEEE Communications Surveys &
Tutorials, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 998–1010, 2012.
where the role of key management system of AMI in smart [6] X. Fang, S. Misra, G. Xue, and D. Yang, “Smart grid the new and
cities are mainly focused upon. improved power grid: A survey,” IEEE Communications Surveys &
Standardization: Future smart grids must rely on the stan- Tutorials, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 944–980, 2012.
[7] H. Li, R. Lu, L. Zhou, B. Yang, and X. Shen, “An efficient merkle-tree-
dardization for smart metering techniques to enable their based authentication scheme for smart grid,” IEEE Systems Journal,
smooth functioning. Currently, extensive activities are being vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 655–663, 2014.
performed in standardizing components and communication [8] R. R. Mohassel, A. Fung, F. Mohammadi, and K. Raahemifar, “A survey
on advanced metering infrastructure,” International Journal of Electrical
between components of the advanced metering infrastructure. Power & Energy Systems, vol. 63, pp. 473–484, 2014.
Standardization forms an integral part for ensuring inter- [9] A. Mahmood, N. Javaid, and S. Razzaq, “A review of wireless commu-
working between the different manufacturers and the AMI nications for smart grid,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,
vol. 41, pp. 248–260, 2015.
machineries. Therefore, several institutes are striving hard [10] R. Deng, G. Xiao, R. Lu, H. Liang, and A. V. Vasilakos, “False data
to achieve this goal. Nowadays, AMI uses a lot of Internet injection on state estimation in power systemsattacks, impacts, and
standards. For example, the application layer standards IEC defense: A survey,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 13,
no. 2, pp. 411–423, 2017.
61968, defined by the International Electro technical Com- [11] D. Choi, S. Lee, D. Won, and S. Kim, “Efficient secure group commu-
mission (IEC), developed the AMI’s common information nications for SCADA,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 25,
model [97]. The XML and EXI standards were designed no. 2, pp. 714–722, 2010.
[12] M. Barbiroli, F. Fuschini, G. Tartarini, and G. E. Corazza, “Smart
by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) committees for metering wireless networks at 169 mhz,” IEEE Access, vol. 5, pp. 8357–
addressing the issues of end-to-end messaging and formats. 8368, 2017.
Thus, the standardization factor needs much more attention [13] E. Union, “Directive 2009/72/ec of the european parliament and of the
council of 13 july 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market
to make interoperability achievable for communication and in electricity and repealing directive 2003/54/ec,” Official Journal of the
information of AMI in smart grids. European Union, vol. 52, no. L211, pp. 55–93, 2009.
[14] C. Directive, “73/ec of the european parliament and of the council of 13
july 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in natural
VI. CONCLUSION gas and repealing directive 2003/55,” Official Journal of the European
Union, no. OJL211, 2009.
In this survey paper, we focus on the studies that investigate [15] Smart Grid Project, “Eurelectric and the european commissions
the challenges and opportunities of key management systems joint research centre,” Accessed on September 15, 2018, [Online]:
https://portal.smartgridsprojects.eu/Pages/Map.aspx.
in AMI. We provide a comprehensive survey of the key [16] F. Rahimi and A. Ipakchi, “Demand response as a market resource under
management system of advanced metering infrastructure in the smart grid paradigm,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 1,
smart grid. We first give a brief introduction of the smart grid no. 1, pp. 82–88, 2010.
[17] O. E. Board, “Monitoring report smart meter deployment and tou
and introduce the fundamental concepts of advanced metering pricing,” [online]: http://www.ontarioenergyboard.ca/OEB/Documents,
infrastructure that have emerged with the smart grid. Further, Tech. Rep., 2011.
we briefly describe how AMI is vulnerable to threats and [18] L. Alejandro, C. Blair, L. Bloodgood, M. Khan, M. Lawless, D. Meehan,
P. Schneider, and K. Tsuji, “Global market for smart electricity meters:
defensive solutions can be provided by using key management Government policies driving strong growth,” US International Trade
systems. Next, we elaborate on the role of key management Commission, Tech. Rep., 2014.
system in AMI followed by the different communication [19] N. Research, “Transmission upgrades, substation automation,
distribution automation, smart grid information technology, and
architectures that have adopted the key management systems smart metering: Global market analysis and forecasts,” [online]:
of AMI. Then, we surveyed the state-of-the-art-works that http://www.navigantresearch.com/research/smart-grid-technologies,
developed mechanisms for efficient use of key management Tech. Rep., January 3, 2014.
[20] Q. Sun, H. Li, Z. Ma, C. Wang, J. Campillo, Q. Zhang, F. Wallin, and
system in AMI. Security analysis of the schemes dealing with J. Guo, “A comprehensive review of smart energy meters in intelligent
key management system in AMI is presented followed by energy networks,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 3, no. 4, pp.
performance analysis of those schemes with respect to storage, 464–479, 2016.
[21] DQI Bureau, “Smart metering: energizing India, 2012,” Accessed on
communication and computation overheads. Finally, potential November 15, 2018, [Online]: http://www.dqindia.com/smartmetering-
research directions for key management system of AMI in energizing-india/.
17
[22] M. E. Kantarci and H. T. Mouftah, “Energy-efficient information and [44] N. George, S. Nithin, and S. K. Kottayil, “Hybrid key management
communication infrastructures in the smart grid: A survey on interactions scheme for secure ami communications,” in Proc. of 6th International
and open issues,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 17, Conference on Advances in Computing & Communications (ICACC),
no. 1, pp. 179–197, 2015. vol. 93, 2016, pp. 862–869.
[23] Y. Yan, Y. Qian, H. Sharif, and D. Tipper, “Survey on smart grid com- [45] J. Zhou, R. Q. Hu, and Y. Qian, “Scalable distributed communication
munication infrastructures: Motivations, requirements and challenges,” architectures to support advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid,”
IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 5–20, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, vol. 23, no. 9,
2013. pp. 1632–1642, 2012.
[24] Y. Yan, Y. Qian, and H. Sharif, “A secure and reliable in-network collab- [46] K. Sharma and L. M. Saini, “Performance analysis of smart metering for
orative communication scheme for advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid: An overview,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,
smart grid,” in Proc. of IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking vol. 49, pp. 720–735, 2015.
Conference (IEEE WCNC), 2011, pp. 909–914. [47] N. Saputro, K. Akkaya, and S. Uludag, “A survey of routing protocols
[25] V. Odelu, A. K. Das, M. Wazid, and M. Conti, “Provably secure for smart grid communications,” Computer Networks, vol. 56, no. 11,
authenticated key agreement scheme for smart grid,” IEEE Transactions pp. 2742–2771, 2011.
on Smart Grid, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 64–71, 2016. [48] I. Colak, S. Sagiroglu, G. Fulli, M. Yesilbudak, and C. Covrig, “A
[26] D. He, S. Chan, Y. Zhang, M. Guizani, C. Chen, and J. Bu, “An enhanced survey on the critical issues in smart grid technologies,” Renewable and
public key infrastructure to secure smart grid wireless communication Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 54, pp. 396–405, 2016.
networks,” IEEE Network, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 10–16, 2014. [49] T. Sauter and M. Lobashov, “End-to-end communication architecture
[27] DOE, “Advanced metering infrastructure,” US Department of Energy, for smart grids,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 58,
Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Tech. Rep., 2008. no. 4, pp. 1218–1228, 2011.
[28] Z. Fan, P. Kulkarni, S. Gormus, C. Efthymiou, G. Kalogridis, [50] Z. Wan, G. Wang, Y. Yang, and S. Shi, “SKM: Scalable key management
M. Sooriyabandara, Z. Zhu, S. Lambotharan, and W. H. Chin, “Smart for advanced metering infrastructure in smart grids,” IEEE Transactions
grid communications: overview of research challenges, solutions, and on Industrial Electronics, vol. 61, no. 12, pp. 7055–7066, 2014.
standardization activities,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, [51] P. Jokar, N. Arianpoo, and V. Leung, “A survey on security issues in
vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 21–38, 2013. smart grids,” Security and Communication Networks, vol. 9, no. 3, pp.
[29] Y. Kabalci, “A survey on smart metering and smart grid communication,” 262–273, 2016.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol. 57, pp. 302–318, 2016. [52] DOE, “Communications requirements of smart grid technologies,” US
[30] European Union, “Meter-ON Final Report: Steering the Implementation Department of Energy, pp. 1-69, Tech. Rep., 2010.
of Smart Metering Solutions throughout Europe,” Accessed on Novem- [53] M. Taneja, “Lightweight security protocols for smart metering,” in Proc.
ber 15, 2018, [Online]: http://www.meter-on.eu/file/2014/10/Meter- of IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Asia (ISGT Asia), 2013,
ON%20Final%20report-%20Oct%202014.pdf. pp. 1–5.
[31] S. Finster and I. Baumgart, “Privacy-aware smart metering: A survey,” [54] M. Kuzlu, M. Pipattanasomporn, and S. Rahman, “Communication
IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 1732– network requirements for major smart grid applications in HAN, NAN
1745, 2014. and WAN,” Computer Networks, vol. 67, pp. 74–88, 2017.
[32] V. C. Gungor, D. Sahin, T. Kocak, S. Ergut, C. Buccella, C. Cecati, and [55] T. W. Chim, S. M. Yiu, V. O. Li, L. C. Hui, and J. Zhong,
G. P. Hancke, “Smart grid technologies: Communication technologies “PRGA: Privacy-preserving recording & gateway-assisted authentication
and standards,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 7, of power usage information for smart grid,” IEEE Transactions on
no. 4, pp. 529–539, 2011. Dependable and Secure Computing, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 85–97, 2015.
[33] M. M. Hasan and H. T. Mouftah, “Encryption as a service for smart [56] A. Lunkeit, T. Vo, and H. Pohl, “Threat modeling smart metering
grid advanced metering infrastructure,” in Proc. of IEEE Symposium on gateways,” in Proc. of European Conference on Smart Objects, Systems
Computers and Communication (IEEE ISCC), 2015, pp. 216–221. and Technologies (SmartSysTech), 2013, pp. 1–5.
[34] S. H. Seo, X. Ding, and E. Bertino, “Encryption key management for [57] A. Sikora, “Implementation of standardized secure smart meter com-
secure communication in smart advanced metering infrastructures,” in munication,” in Proc. of 35th International Telecommunications Energy
Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications Conference Smart Power and Efficiency, 2013, pp. 1–5.
(IEEE SmartGridComm), 2013, pp. 498–503. [58] A. Zoha, A. Gluhak, M. A. Imran, and S. Rajasegarar, “Non-intrusive
[35] M. Benmalek and Y. Challal, “MK-AMI: Efficient multi-group key load monitoring approaches for disaggregated energy sensing: A survey,”
management scheme for secure communications in AMI systems,” in Sensors, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 16 838–16 866, 2012.
Proc. of IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference [59] S. S. Hosseini, K. Agbossou, S. Kelouwani, and A. Cardenas, “Non-
(IEEE WCNC), 2016, pp. 1–6. intrusive load monitoring through home energy management systems:
[36] S. Das, Y. Ohba, M. Kanda, D. Famolari, and S. K. Das, “A key A comprehensive review,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews,
management framework for AMI networks in smart grid,” IEEE Com- vol. 79, pp. 1266–1274,, 2017.
munications Magazine, vol. 50, no. 8, pp. 30–37, 2012. [60] O. Alrawi, I. S. Bayram, and M. Koc, “High-resolution electricity load
[37] J. Kamto, L. Qian, J. Fuller, and J. Attia, “Light-weight key distribution profiles of selected houses in qatar,” in Proc. of IEEE 12th International
and management for advanced metering infrastructure,” in Proc. of IEEE Conference on Compatibility, Power Electronics and Power Engineering
GLOBECOM Workshop, 2011, pp. 1216–1220. (CPE-POWERENG), 2018, pp. 1–6.
[38] K. Rabieh, M. M. Mahmoud, K. Akkaya, and S. Tonyali, “Scalable [61] S. M. Tabatabaei, S. Dick, and W. Xu, “Toward non-intrusive load
certificate revocation schemes for smart grid AMI networks using bloom monitoring via multi-label classification,” IEEE Transactions on Smart
filters,” IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Grid, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 26–40, 2017.
vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 420–432, 2017. [62] W. Kong, Z. Y. Dong, J. Ma, D. J. Hill, J. Zhao, and F. Luo, “An
[39] R. Deng, Z. Yang, M. Y. Chow, and J. Chen, “A survey on demand extensible approach for non-intrusive load disaggregation with smart
response in smart grids: Mathematical models and approaches,” IEEE meter data,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 3362–
Transactions on Industrial Informatics, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 570–582, 3372, 2018.
2015. [63] Powerley, “Powerley: Utility designed energy management
[40] A. Mohammadali, M. S. Haghighi, M. H. Tadayon, and A. M. solution,” Accessed on January 26, 2019, [Online]:
Nodooshan, “A novel identity-based key establishment method for https://www.powerley.com/platform/.
advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid,” IEEE Transactions on [64] J. Liu, “Powerley unveils energy-driven smart home
Smart Grid, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 2834–2842, 2018. experience,” Accessed on January 26, 2019, [Online]:
[41] M. Benmalek, Y. Challal, A. Derhab, and A. Bouabdallah, “VerSAMI: https://www.asmag.com/showpost/26733.aspx.
Versatile and scalable key management for smart grid AMI systems,” [65] A. O. Otuoze, M. W. Mustafa, and R. M. Larik, “Smart grids security
Computer Networks, vol. 132, pp. 161–179, 2018. challenges: Classification by sources of threats,” Journal of Electrical
[42] W. Wang, Y. Xu, and M. Khanna, “A survey on the communication Systems and Information Technology, pp. 1–16, 2018.
architectures in smart grid,” Computer Networks, vol. 55, no. 15, pp. [66] B. J. Murrill, E. C. Liu, and R. M. Thompson, “Smart meter data:
3604–3629, 2011. Privacy and cyber security.” Congressional Research Service, Library
[43] S. Bera, S. Misra, and J. J. P. C. Rodrigues, “Cloud computing of Congress, Tech. Rep., 2012.
applications for smart grid: A survey,” IEEE Transactions on Parallel [67] A. M. Markham, P. Shenoy, K. Fu, E. Cecchet, and D. Irwin, “Private
& Distributed Systems, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 1477–1494, 2015. memoirs of a smart meter,” in Proc. of 2nd ACM Workshop on Embedded
Sensing Systems for Energy-Efficiency in Building, 2010, pp. 61–66.
18
[68] G. Kalogridis, C. Efthymiou, S. Z. Denic, T. A. Lewis, and R. Cepeda, [90] M. Nabeel, X. Ding, S. H. Seo, and E. Bertino, “Scalable end-to-end
“Privacy for smart meters: towards undetectable appliance load sig- security for advanced metering infrastructures,” Information Systems,
natures,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid vol. 53, pp. 213–223, 2015.
Communications (IEEE SmartGridComm), 2010, pp. 232–237. [91] M. Delavar, S. Mirzakuchaki, M. H. Ameri, and J. Mohajeri, “PUF based
[69] A. Anzalchi and A. Sarwat, “A survey on security assessment of meter- solutions for secure communications in advanced metering infrastructure
ing infrastructure in smart grid systems,” in Proc. of IEEE SoutheastCon, AMI,” International Journal of Communication Systems, vol. 67, pp.
2015, pp. 1–4. 74–88, 2017.
[70] Y. Yan, R. Q. Hu, S. K. Das, H. Sharif, and Y. Qian, “An efficient [92] M. Nabeel, S. Kerr, X. Ding, and E. Bertino, “Authentication and key
security protocol for advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid,” management for advanced metering infrastructures utilizing physically
IEEE Network, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 64–71, 2013. unclonable functions,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on
[71] M. Anas, N. Javaid, A. Mahmood, S. M. Raza, U. Qasim, and Z. Khan, Smart Grid Communications (IEEE SmartGridComm), 2012, pp. 324–
“Minimizing electricity theft using smart meters in AMI,” in Proc. of 329.
7th IEEE International Conference on Parallel, Grid, Cloud and Internet [93] X. Zou, Y. S. Dai, and E. Bertino, “A practical and flexible key manage-
Computing (3PGCIC), 2012, pp. 176–182. ment mechanism for trusted collaborative computing,” in Proc. of 27th
[72] R. K. Bhatia and V. Bodade, “Defining the framework for wireless-ami IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM),
security in smart grid,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on 2008, pp. 538–546.
Green Computing Communication and Electrical Engineering, 2014, pp. [94] N. Shang, M. Nabeel, F. Paci, and E. Bertino, “A privacy-preserving
1–5. approach to policy-based content dissemination,” in Proc. of 26th IEEE
[73] J. Xia and Y. Wang, “Secure key distribution for the smart grid,” IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering, 2010, pp. 944–955.
Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 1437–1443, 2012. [95] Y. Seurin, “On the exact security of schnorr-type signatures in the
[74] S. Rafaeli and D. Hutchison, “A survey of key management for secure random oracle model,” in Proc. of International Conference on the
group communication,” ACM Computing Surveys, vol. 35, no. 3, pp. Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques, 2012, pp. 554–
309–329, 2003. 571.
[75] A. Perrig, “Efficient collaborative key management protocols for secure [96] K. Zhang, R. Lu, X. Liang, J. Qiao, and X. Shen, “Park: A privacy-
autonomous group communication,” in Proc. of International Workshop preserving aggregation scheme with adaptive key management for smart
on Cryptographic Techniques and E-Commerce, vol. 54, 1999, pp. 192– grid,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Communications in
202. China, 2013, pp. 236–241.
[76] B. Wu, J. Wu, E. B. Fernandez, M. Ilyas, and S. Magliveras, “Secure [97] M. Uslar, M. Specht, S. Rohjans, J. Trefke, and J. M. Gonzlez, The
and efficient key management in mobile ad hoc networks,” Journal of Common Information Model CIM: IEC 61968/61970 and 62325-A
Network and Computer Applications, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 937–954, 2007. practical introduction to the CIM. Springer Science & Business Media,
[77] N. Liu, J. Chen, L. Zhu, J. Zhang, and Y. He, “A key management Springer, 2012.
scheme for secure communications of advanced metering infrastructure
in smart grid,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 60,
no. 10, pp. 4746–4756, 2013.
[78] C. Beaver, D. Gallup, W. Neumann, and M. Torgerson, “Key manage-
ment for scada,” Cryptog. Information System Security Dept., Sandia Amrita Ghosal obtained her Ph.D. degree in com-
Nat. Labs, Tech. Rep. SAND2001-3252, 20, 2002. puter science and engineering from Indian Institute
[79] R. Dawson, C. Boyd, E. Dawson, and J. M. G. Nieto, “Skma: A key of Engineering Science and Technology, India in
management architecture for SCADA systems,” in Proc. of Australasian 2015. She received her M. Tech. degree in computer
Workshops on Grid Computing and E-research, vol. 54, 2006, pp. 183– science and engineering from Kalyani Govt. Engi-
192. neering College, India in 2006.
[80] D. Choi, H. Kim, D. Won, and S. Kim, “Advanced key-management She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at
architecture for secure scada communications,” IEEE Transactions on University of Padua, Italy. Prior to that, she was
Power Delivery, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 1154–1163, 2009. Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer
[81] W. He, Y. Huang, R. Sathyam, K. Nahrstedt, and W. C. Lee, “Smock: a Science and Engineering, Dr. B. C. Roy Engineering
scalable method of cryptographic key management for mission-critical College, India. Her current research interests include
wireless ad-hoc networks,” IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics security and privacy in wireless resource-constrained mobile device and smart
and Security, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 140–150, 2009. grid, network modeling and analysis. She has published research works in
[82] H. Nicanfar, P. Jokar, and V. C. Leung, “Smart grid authentication and reputed conference proceedings and journals in her field. She also has co-
key management for unicast and multicast communications,” in Proc. of authored a number of book chapters.
IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Asia, 2011, pp. 1–8.
[83] M. Benmalek, Y. Challal, and A. Bouabdallah, “Scalable multi-group
key management for advanced metering infrastructure,” in Proc. of IEEE
International Conference on Computer and Information Technology
(CIT), 2015, pp. 183–190. Mauro Conti is Full Professor at the University of
[84] M. Benmalek and Y. Challal, “eSKAMI: Efficient and scalable multi- Padua, Italy. He obtained his Ph.D. from Sapienza
group key management for advanced metering infrastructure in smart University of Rome, Italy, in 2009. After his Ph.D.,
grid,” in Proc. of IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking he was a Post-Doc Researcher at Vrije Universiteit
Conference (IEEE WCNC), 2015, pp. 1–6. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In 2011 he joined
[85] K. Yu, M. Arifuzzaman, Z. Wen, D. Zhang, and T. Sato, “A key as Assistant Professor the University of Padua,
management scheme for secure communications of information centric where he became Associate Professor in 2015, and
advanced metering infrastructure in smart grid,” IEEE Transactions on Full Professor in 2018. He has been Visiting Re-
Instrumentation and Measurement, vol. 64, no. 8, pp. 2072–2085, 2015. searcher at GMU (2008, 2016), UCLA (2010), UCI
[86] C. K. Wong, M. Gouda, and S. S. Lam, “Secure group communications (2012, 2013, 2014, 2017), TU Darmstadt (2013), UF
using key graphs,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 8, no. 1, (2015), and FIU (2015, 2016). He has been awarded
pp. 16–30, 2000. with a Marie Curie Fellowship (2012) by the European Commission, and with
[87] H. Nicanfar, P. Jokar, K. Beznosov, and V. C. Leung, “Efficient authen- a Fellowship by the German DAAD (2013). His research is also funded by
tication and key management mechanisms for smart grid communica- companies, including Cisco and Intel. His main research interest is in the area
tions,” IEEE Systems Journal, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 629–640, 2014. of security and privacy. In this area, he published more than 200 papers in
[88] H. Nicanfar and V. C. Leung, “EIBC: Enhanced identity-based cryptog- topmost international peer-reviewed journals and conference. He is Associate
raphy, a conceptual design,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference Editor for several journals, including IEEE Communications Surveys &
in Systems (SysCon), 2012, pp. 1–7. Tutorials, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, and IEEE
[89] I. Parvez, A. I. Sarwat, M. T. Thai, and A. K. Srivastava, “A novel key Transactions on Network and Service Management. He was Program Chair for
management and data encryption method for metering infrastructure of TRUST 2015, ICISS 2016, WiSec 2017, and General Chair for SecureComm
smart grid,” arXiv:1709.08505v1[cs.MA], 2017. 2012 and ACM SACMAT 2013. He is Senior Member of the IEEE.

Key Management Systems For Smart Grid Advanced Metering Infrastructure: A Survey

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Key Management Systems For Smart Grid Advanced Metering Infrastructure: A Survey

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Key Management Systems For Smart Grid Advanced Metering Infrastructure: A Survey

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

Key Management Systems for Smart Grid

Substation Power Plant 80 million residential customers in Japan are expected to have

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II,

A. AMI System Features

of user privacy along with authentication for meter readings

operation and management services. The MDMS comprises

ment System (OMS), Geographic Information System (GIS),

Enhanced Broadcast Advanced

Example: Example: Example: Example: Example: Example: Example: Example:

Fig. 4. Taxonomy for Key Management Approaches in AMI.

Designing of key refreshing policies are specific to the DR Customer Domain (CD)

project, considering the inconsistencies in the number of mem-

section mentions two such works in the area of PUF based

D. Hybrid Technique Start

Hybrid techniques for KMS provide for both symmetric Message

and asymmetric encryption for securing AMI in smart grids. Random

You might also like

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.