A Multi-Factor Authentication Method for Power Grid Terminals Based on Edge Computing Paradigm

In modern power systems, the management of smart terminals is usually based on a hierarchical management architecture, in which each edge device is regarded as a node, and at the same time, there will be a superior node in a certain range to carry out the coordination in that range. However, with the rapid increase in the number of smart terminal devices, authentication generates a large amount of identity information, leading to storage and transmission problems, including large data transmission delays and strained computational capabilities at some nodes. Through the design of lightweight multi-factor authentication method and the terminal side migration of computing resources, this paper proposes a multi-factor authentication method for grid terminal based on the idea of edge computing. It is based on the target recognition technology of the YOLO algorithm and takes the target ‘category’ and the target’attitude’ in the detection box as ‘ownership-based’ and ‘knowledge-based’ authentication factors. Finally, the authentication security and the real-time performance of the mechanism are verified through experiments. Experimental results show that the method achieves 96.3% interception of predefined identity attacks (e.g., brute force, impersonation) and 5.1 times faster authentication compared to traditional multi-factor mechanisms with the same level of security. The method achieves an average authentication delay of 3.63 seconds, balancing real-time performance and security.