Evaluation and Comparison of Multicast Message Authentication Protocols for Use in Power Grid Applications
Critical infrastructures such as smart grid require efficient and reliable data delivery services (DDS) for today’s and future needs of power system monitoring control applications. Data delivery services have to meet the real time requirements of the smart grid with minimum latency and also provide availability of data at multiple locations using multicast message authentication schemes. All known multicast message authentication approaches carry trade-offs between quality-of-service (QoS) aspects such as added latency, computational cost, and the precise authentication guarantees that they afford.
This paper surveys several multi-cast authentication approaches for use in a power grid DDS based on an experimental evaluation of their latency and computational costs and an assessment of the appropriateness of their authentication guarantees for use in power grid applications. Furthermore, the discussion involves the experimental analysis of different cryptographic primitives for latency and the applicability of different algorithms for data delivery services in smart grid applications. The use of time synchronized protocols such as TESLA are discussed and the latency incurred by them compared to other cryptographic primitives is discussed.
This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.
- The following copyright notice applies to all of the above items that appear in IEEE publications: "Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/publish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from IEEE."
- The following copyright notice applies to all of the above items that appear in ACM publications: "© ACM, effective the year of publication shown in the bibliographic information. This file is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in the journal or proceedings indicated in the bibliographic data for each item."
- The following copyright notice applies to all of the above items that appear in IFAC publications: "Document is being reproduced under permission of the Copyright Holder. Use or reproduction of the Document is for informational or personal use only."
