Application of Spritz Encryption in Smart Meters to Protect Consumer Data

Lincoln Kamau Kiarie,Christopher Maina Muriithi,Philip Kibet Langat

doi:10.1155/2019/5910528

Abstract

The ongoing upgrade of the electrical power system into a more powerful system known as Smart Grid has both benefits and costs. Smart Grid relies on advanced communication and hence offers better services through improved monitoring, planning, and control. However, enhanced communications make Smart Grid more susceptible to privacy leaks and cyber attacks. Small meters collect detailed consumer data, such as power consumption, which can then become a major source of privacy leakage. Encryption can help protect consumer data, but great care is needed. The popular RC4 (Rivest Cipher 4) encryption has been implemented in the widely deployed smart meter standard—Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP)—but has been shown to have major weaknesses. This paper proposes the use of Spritz encryption. Spritz is an RC4-like algorithm designed to repair weak design decisions in RC4 to improve security. A test on performing one encryption took only 0.85 milliseconds, showing that it is fast enough not to affect the operations of a smart meter. Its ability to withstand brute force attacks on small keys is also significantly greater than RC4’s ability.

Highlights

A key foundation of technological progress is electrical power. e traditional electrical power grid, which handles power from when it is generated until it reaches the customer, has remained relatively unchanged for many years
Efthymiou and Kalogridis [38] propose the use of anonymization of smart metering data. ey use a trusted third party to ensure that the frequent electrical metering data sent by smart meters are anonymous. e utility is able to get the information it needs for its operations, but the high frequency data does not need to be attributed to a particular meter
They admit that the method “may not offer sufficient smart metering privacy protection [but] contributes an additional layer of security towards that direction” [38]

Summary

Introduction

A key foundation of technological progress is electrical power. e traditional electrical power grid, which handles power from when it is generated until it reaches the customer, has remained relatively unchanged for many years. A smart meter provides the utility company more information on electrical consumption than a regular energy meter [4] It allows for two-way communication with benefits to both the utility and customers. Utilities collect more data to help in planning while incurring less operational costs to do so Customers can track their usage better, and they can resell energy they generate and have more ways to participate. E utility is able to get the information it needs for its operations, but the high frequency data does not need to be attributed to a particular meter In their conclusion, they admit that the method “may not offer sufficient smart metering privacy protection [but] contributes an additional layer of security towards that direction” [38]. It could further help in combining options and having multiple layers of security to curb a range of threats

Materials and Methods

Results and Discussion

Attacks on Attenuated Ciphers