A dynamic secret-based encryption scheme for smart grid wireless communication

Integrating information network into power system is the key for realizing the vision of smart grid, but also introduces many security problems. Wireless communication offers the benefits of low cost, rapid deployment, shared communication medium, and mobility; at the same time, it causes many security and privacy challenges. In this paper, the concept of dynamic secret is applied to design an encryption scheme for smart grid wireless communication. Between two parties of communication, the previous packets are coded as retransmission sequence, where retransmitted packet is marked as '1' and the other is marked as '0.' During the communication, the retransmission sequence is generated at both sides to update the dynamic encryption key. Any missing or misjudging in retransmission sequence would prevent the adversary from achieving the keys. In our experiments, a smart grid platform is built, employing the ZigBee protocol for wireless communication. And a dynamic secret-based encryption demo system is designed based on this platform. The experiment results show that the retransmission and packet loss in ZigBee communication are inevitable and unpredictable, and it is impossible for the adversary to track the updating of the dynamic encryption key.