A Novel Security Architecture for WSN-Based Applications in Smart Grid

The Smart Grid (SG) aims to cope with the problems of the traditional grid, using renewable power generators. Similarly, SG benefits from the deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to enhance its aspects by monitoring the physical behavior of the power generators. However, new threats and att...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Smart cities (Basel) Vol. 5; no. 2; pp. 633 - 649
Main Authors: Aljadani, Nouf, Gazdar, Tahani
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2022
Subjects:
Algorithms
Certification
certification authority (CA)
Clustering
Communication
Computer architecture
Confidentiality
Digital signatures
Eavesdropping
Energy
Energy levels
Generators
Nodes
public key infrastructure (PKI)
Sensors
Smart grid
Smart Grid (SG)
Trust
Wireless sensor networks
wireless sensor networks (WSNs)
ISSN:2624-6511, 2624-6511
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The Smart Grid (SG) aims to cope with the problems of the traditional grid, using renewable power generators. Similarly, SG benefits from the deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to enhance its aspects by monitoring the physical behavior of the power generators. However, new threats and attacks may arise due to the open nature and large scale of SG where WSNs are deployed. In this paper, we propose a new security architecture for WSNs in SG based on public key infrastructure (PKI). The key idea of the proposed architecture is to distribute the role of the certification authority (CA) among a set of sensor nodes to ensure the availability and scalability of the CA services. To elect this set of sensor nodes, we propose a novel lightweight clustering algorithm for WSNs that relies on the trust metrics of the nodes and their energy levels. The proposed architecture provides many security services such as authentication and confidentiality and mitigates many types of attacks such as Sybil and eavesdropping. Extensive simulations have been conducted using network simulator OMNET++ and Castalia framework to investigate the performance of the clustering algorithm. The results show that almost 100% of the sensors are members of clusters, and even in the presence of malicious nodes, the number of cluster heads remains static which reflects the robustness of the proposed architecture.
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ISSN:2624-6511
2624-6511
DOI:10.3390/smartcities5020033