Toward Quantum Secured Distributed Energy Resources: Adoption of Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD)

Abstract

Quantum computing is a game-changing technology that affects modern cryptography and security systems including distributed energy resources (DERs) systems. Since the new quantum era is coming soon in 5–10 years, it is crucial to prepare and develop quantum-safe DER systems. This paper provides a comprehensive review of vulnerabilities caused by quantum computing attacks, potential defense strategies, and remaining challenges for DER networks. First, new security vulnerabilities and attack models of the cyber-physical DER systems caused by quantum computing attacks are explored. Moreover, this paper introduces potential quantum attack defense strategies including Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), which can be applied to DER networks and evaluates defense strategies. Finally, remaining research opportunities and challenges for next-generation quantum-safe DER are discussed.

Advanced and Complex Energy Systems Monitoring and Control: A Review on Available Technologies and Their Application Criteria

“…Distributed energy systems require a high computational cost for data processing. In this trend, quantum computing and related frameworks could support this weakness [70]. For the energy applications, another main issue correlated to the data extraction for processing is the communications systems choice which requires optimized networks [71,72].…”

An Overview of Cyber-Resilient Smart Inverters Based on Practical Attack Models

“…Overall, the current security best practice and standard/ recommendation (the current recommendations) for smart inverters mostly focus on network security and firmware security in the prevention stage, neglecting critical security requirements of the smart inverters, specifically malware, ransomware, RC, and hardware security. In addition, it is anticipated that quantum attacks will be feasible in just five to ten years [66]. If the quantum computing attack is possible, the adversary can easily leverage existing vulnerabilities of V1 (PKI vulnerability in TLS), V6 (Spoofed codesigning certificate), V7 (TPM vulnerability), and V10 (MFA) by extracting private keys or predicting passwords [66].…”

“…In addition, it is anticipated that quantum attacks will be feasible in just five to ten years [66]. If the quantum computing attack is possible, the adversary can easily leverage existing vulnerabilities of V1 (PKI vulnerability in TLS), V6 (Spoofed codesigning certificate), V7 (TPM vulnerability), and V10 (MFA) by extracting private keys or predicting passwords [66]. It is noted that the vulnerabilities in Table I are just examples.…”

Why should and how can quantum technologies be leveraged at national levels?

“…Quantum key distribution is considered as one of the building blocks of the future quantum Internet by establishing quantum nodes [14]. Therefore, facilitating the implementation of both quantum communications and QC networks, where services are envisioned to be powered by cloud-based quantum computers integrated with high-performance computing infrastructure being secured by both PQC and QKD [15,16]. New cloud models, standards, and regulations are to be formulated for emerging services and deployments such as QC as a service (QCaaS), quantum simulation, blind QC, and distributed QC systems leading to revolutionising the cloud computing architecture development.…”