Analysis of Preventive Measures Against DDoS Attacks in Smart Grid

J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B https://doi.org/10.1007/s40031-022-00844-1 REVIEW PAPER Analysis of Preventive Measures Against DDoS Attacks in Smart Grid H. L. Gururaj1 · B. H. Swathi2 · R. Trupti2 · Urs R. Darshan2 · A. B. Rajendra2 · K. Paramesha2 Received: 22 August 2021 / Accepted: 6 December 2022 © The Author(s) 2022 Abstract In recent times, the number of cyberattacks has escalated quickly and predominantly. There is no particular victim of this attack as it has outrageously tampered with all the domains in society. Cogitating this issue, the paper focuses on the cyberattacks on smart grids and endeavors some prevention techniques for the DDOS attacks. The researchers are amidst a paradigm shift, and the factors affecting this must be addressed and dealt with. It talks about a radical transformation of the medieval grids to smart grids and the technologies used and some of the possible solutions. Keywords Smart grid · Cyberattacks · DDOS attacks Introduction Electricity plays a significant role when it comes to developing and developed countries for their future ventures. Electricity use has dramatically changed over the years. It has ameliorated the standards of living in a particular region. It is also a promising factor in a country’s economic development, as it powers the indirect sectors of a region, thereby opening up numerous job opportunities. The majority of us are aware that acquire electricity from power plants using numerous forms of energy. The modern electric grid was built in the 1890s and was persistently embedded with the * H. L. Gururaj 1 Department of Information Technology, Manipal Institute of Technology Bengaluru, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India 2 Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering, Mysuru 570002, India upcoming technology. Today, the medieval grid is improvised to hold 9200 electric generating units with more than a million megawatts of generating proportions linked to more than 3,000,000 miles of transmission lines. Although the electric grid is revolutionizing over the decades, it is needed a far more well-developed and handled system for the escalating electricity needs in the next century. With the presentday guidelines and upgrading technology, including numerous business opportunities, electric grids have captured a potential interest. Present in a world which is already fighting against a pandemic, it would be nerve-racking to deal with any other problem. In these desperate times, power resources play a significant role, too, so it is needed a far more dependable and flexible grid to cope with the changes around us. The lack of modernized infrastructure and inadequate maintenance leads to a series of blackouts in Venezuela, which left almost 32 million in darkness for at least ten days overall, on March 7, 2019. This accurately portrays the lack of flexibility in the contemporary grid. Table 1 given below represents the recent cyberattacks around the world [1–3]. Given the increase in the world’s population and extreme living conditions, flexibility in delivering power services to people plays a significant role. Modernized power grids must be able to cope with the casualties and help revive the normal functioning of the grids within no time. Those were the days when large power plants with downwind transmission and distribution providing power for an entire region [4]. The amalgamation of renewable energy resources, namely wind, and solar power, has proved to open up new doors to the world’s power systems. These days grid operation includes increasing complexity through decentralization, multi-directional power flows, and labile power generation. Energy supply to the people is done in a far more ‘smart’ way by incorporating intelligence and shaping the power 13 Vol.:(0123456789) J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B Table 1  List of incidents recently occurred on smart grids Date Incident December 2014 South Korean nuclear and hydroelectric company, Korea hydro and nuclear power (KHNP) was hacked at the periphery of 2014. The attackers successfully stole and posted the plans online and manuals for the nuclear reactors, as well as the data of 10,000 employees The very well-known cyberattack of all times, the Ukrainian blackout happened in an Ukrainian power company. Hackers got into the system and outrageously deprived 225,000 households of electricity. They delivered a virus via email through spear—phishing- a technique that sends key employees detailed messages, using information gathered from social media In less than a year, another cyberattack was posed on Ukraine. Hackers left customers in parts of Kyiv without electricity for an hour, after disabling an electricity substation Saudi Aramco became a victim of cyberattacks in 2017, where the hackers targeted the safety system of the petrochemical plant. The plant official stated that the attack aimed in shutting down the plant and wiping out data, it was a way of sending a political message to the opposites The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) has become the latest victim of a cyberattack. On march 2020, it was said that it found evidences of a successful cyber intrusion into its office network. They are planning to introduce contingency plans to avoid further attacks as it represents 42 European transmission system operators in 35 countries December 2015 and December 2016 August 2017 March 2020 supplies that are resilient, reliable, cost-effective, and secure. The genesis of any highly distributed energy resources [DERs] with numerous levels, decision-making components, and communication protocols has obtained a lot of interest in developing conventional electric grids. The distributed systems are more approachable than the conventional system, and it is likely to replace the conventional grids. This helps overcome the vulnerabilities in long-distance power transmission, especially in the troubled regions of the world. The swiftly falling prices point to the transition of a centralized grid to a decentralized grid, where the power is generated in the right way and consumed the right way. It can lessen the terror attacks on centralized power stations by inaugurating decentralized power stations [5, 6]. flexibility of any machine, for instance. So this radical transformation includes the replacement of aging assets of the grid with new information and communication technology (ICT). Smart grids are intelligent systems with digital automation technologies for carrying day-to-day jobs in a medieval electric grid [9, 10] [19]. Smart Grid: Delivering Energy in a ‘Smart’ Way 1) Smart meters smart meters are electronic devices that make two-way communication possible in the smart grid. The main objective of a smart grid is to collect data from the customer’s end. These data can be collected as frequently as 15 min or a day. This differs based on the grid requirements. The collected data are later transferred to the (...truncated)