SDN-Based Resilient Smart Grid: The SDN-microSENSE Architecture

Abstract

The technological leap of smart technologies and the Internet of Things has advanced the conventional model of the electrical power and energy systems into a new digital era, widely known as the Smart Grid. The advent of Smart Grids provides multiple benefits, such as self-monitoring, self-healing and pervasive control. However, it also raises crucial cybersecurity and privacy concerns that can lead to devastating consequences, including cascading effects with other critical infrastructures or even fatal accidents. This paper introduces a novel architecture, which will increase the Smart Grid resiliency, taking full advantage of the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology. The proposed architecture called SDN-microSENSE architecture consists of three main tiers: (a) Risk assessment, (b) intrusion detection and correlation and (c) self-healing. The first tier is responsible for evaluating dynamically the risk level of each Smart Grid asset. The second tier undertakes to detect and correlate security events and, finally, the last tier mitigates the potential threats, ensuring in parallel the normal operation of the Smart Grid. It is noteworthy that all tiers of the SDN-microSENSE architecture interact with the SDN controller either for detecting or mitigating intrusions.

Strategic Honeypot Deployment in Ultra-Dense Beyond 5G Networks: A Reinforcement Learning Approach

“…Moreover, Telekom-Fruhwarnsystem [12] was started in 2013 to collect various datasets related to honeypot activities. Finally, H2020 SPEAR [25] and H2020 SDN-microSENSE [26] implemented various industrial honeypots for the smart electrical grid.…”

Dynamic Risk Assessment and Certification in the Power Grid: A Collaborative Approach

“…In [11], A. Ghosal and M. Conti analyse study and analyse key management systems for Advanced Metering Infrastructures (AMIs). Similarly, in [12], the author presents an overall architectural design that takes full advantage of the SDN technology in order to mitigate and prevent potential cybersecurity incidents in a timely manner. In [14], M. Asghar et al focus on the privacy issues related to the smart meters.…”

“…The authors in [12] present the SDN-microSENSE architecture, a three tier architecture consisting of a. risk assessment framework (S-RAF), b. an intrusion detection and correlation framework (XL-EDPS) and c. a self-healing framework (SDN-SELF). S-RAF is responsible for collaborative risk assessment and honeypot deployment management.…”

“…However, the dynamic risk assessment and cybersecurity certification remain critical issues. In [12], the authors provide a dynamic risk assessment process based on Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). However, CVSS is characterised by some operational limitations [26].…”

A novel hybrid-based approach of snort automatic rule generator and security event correlation (SARG-SEC)

“…In addition, the energy sector in Ukraine suffered catastrophic coordinated cyberattacks (APT) that led to a significant blackout affecting more than 225,000 people. They also highlighted similar alarming APT threats, such as DragonFly, TRITON, and Crashoverride, that could cause devasting consequences to individual lives and the global economy, thereby leading to national security threats ( Grammatikis et al, 2021 ). Accordingly, it is essential for security experts to design, implement and deploy robust and efficient cybersecurity frameworks to alleviate the current and subsequent alarming losses for the government and private sectors.…”