Systematic survey of advanced metering infrastructure security: Vulnerabilities, attacks, countermeasures, and future vision

Mostafa Shokry, Ali Ismail Awad, Mahmoud Khaled Abd-Ellah, Ashraf A.M. Khalaf

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

There is a paradigm shift from traditional power distribution systems to smart grids (SGs) due to advances in information and communication technology. An advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is one of the main components in an SG. Its relevance comes from its ability to collect, process, and transfer data through the internet. Although the advances in AMI and SG techniques have brought new operational benefits, they introduce new security and privacy challenges. Security has emerged as an imperative requirement to protect an AMI from attack. Currently, ensuring security is a major challenge in the design and deployment of an AMI. This study provides a systematic survey of the security of AMI systems from diverse perspectives. It focuses on attacks, mitigation approaches, and future visions. The contributions of this article are fourfold: First, the vulnerabilities that may exist in all components of an AMI are described and analyzed. Second, it considers attacks that exploit these vulnerabilities and the impact they can have on the performance of individual components and the overall AMI system. Third, it discusses various countermeasures that can protect an AMI system. Fourth, it presents the open challenges relating to AMI security as well as future research directions. The uniqueness of this review is its comprehensive coverage of AMI components with respect to their security vulnerabilities, attacks, and countermeasures. The future vision is described at the end.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)358-377
Number of pages20
JournalFuture Generation Computer Systems
Volume136
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2022

Keywords

  • Advanced metering infrastructure
  • Countermeasure
  • Cybersecurity
  • Security attack
  • Security threat
  • Security vulnerability
  • Ssmart grid

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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