BMSVP: Blockchain-based message signing and verification protocol for security enhancement in smart grids

Abstract

The transformation of traditional power grid systems towards smart grids is driven by factors such as the expansion of vehicle charging infrastructure, rapid technological advancements, demands for energy efficiency, as well as the surge in distributed energy generation. However, the smart grid system integrates with numerous internet of things (IoT) devices and legacy systems, most of which have inherent vulnerabilities or do not support current cryptographic protocols. In addition, the communication among the myriad of smart grid devices takes place over the public internet, further exposing the smart grids to security threats. Although numerous security techniques have been presented to mitigate these threats, the provision of perfect security at low overheads remains elusive. In this paper, we leverage blockchain, bilinear pairings, and elliptic curve cryptography to develop a provably secure protocol for smart grids. Its formal security is performed using the widely deployed Real or Random (RoR) model, while its semantic security analysis demonstrate its resilience against threats such as side-channeling, replays and privileged insiders. In addition, it is shown to offer authentication, untraceability, anonymity, and perfect key secrecy. In terms of performance evaluation, it is shown to reduce communication costs by 22.36% while maintaining fairly low computation overheads. There is therefore a need to further optimize this protocol to lessen the incurred computation overheads.