Abstract
Since the 1990s, the digitalization process has transformed the communication infrastructure within the electrical grid: proprietary infrastructures and protocols have been replaced by the IEC 61850 approach, which realizes interoperability among vendors. Furthermore, the latest networking solutions merge operational technologies (OTs) and informational technology (IT) traffics in the same media, such as time-sensitive networking (TSN)—standard, interoperable, deterministic, and Ethernet-based. It merges OT and IT worlds by defining three basic traffic types: scheduled, best-effort, and reserved traffic. However, TSN demands security against potential new cyberattacks, primarily, to protect real-time critical messages. Consequently, security in the smart grid has turned into a hot topic under regulation, standardization, and business. This survey collects vulnerabilities of the communication in the smart grid and reveals security mechanisms introduced by international electrotechnical commission (IEC) 62351-6 and how to apply them to time-sensitive networking.
Highlights
Electronics 2021, 10, 1881. https://international electrotechnical commission (IEC) 61850 [1], the standard for automating power substations, enables an interoperable digitalization of power substations and many smart grid premises [2,3], critical in the energy sector
Since the definition of IEC 61850 and the first implementations of power substation networks based on the standard, several real-world security attacks have proven the lack of protection of the infrastructure, devices, and some protocols used [5]
Flexibility: the standard has been designed to support different services with different performance requirements; Configurability: substation configuration language (SCL) is used to describe the substation’s network and the services offered by all the devices; Interoperability: devices from different vendors can provide any service needed in the scope of a substation, which reduces configuration time and reliability issues
Summary
IEC 61850 [1], the standard for automating power substations, enables an interoperable digitalization of power substations and many smart grid premises [2,3], critical in the energy sector It defines the data models, services, and communication protocols. Since the definition of IEC 61850 and the first implementations of power substation networks based on the standard, several real-world security attacks have proven the lack of protection of the infrastructure, devices, and some protocols used [5]. In this scenario, where substation communications may be exposed to the Internet, security becomes crucial.
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