A Novel Secure SDN/LTE based Architecture for Smart Grid Security

With the increased deployment of smart grids and their adoption of ICT technologies, security threats are on the rise. For the realization of a smart city, we are interested in interconnecting latest communication technologies that further raises the alarm for optimum security. Keeping that in view, security of user energy profiles in Smart Grids has been a topic of discussion for the last few years. In this paper, we present a novel secure architecture that ensures significant security measures for a smart grid user. Our architecture is based on software defined networking(SDN) and LTE. In this architecture, we use a specialized SDN controller called FlowVisor for logical slicing of smart grid that forwards AES-128 encrypted metering data ensuring confidentiality, authentication, authorization and availability making use of the features offered by it. Using LTE, we send a 24-hour metering sum to the utility that compares it with the last 24 readings received via SDN switches thus ensuring integrity and non-repudiation by including some user specific attributes. After performance evaluation, we conclude that our architecture addresses serious security threats in a cost-effective manner and because of its implementation flexibility, it can be adopted easily in any smart grid.