Smart Grid Security: Threats, Vulnerabilities and Solutions

The traditional electrical power grid is currently evolving into the smart grid. Smart grid integrates the traditional electrical power grid with information and communication technologies (ICT). Such integration empowers the electrical utilities providers and consumers, improves the efficiency and the availability of the power system while constantly monitoring, controlling and managing the demands of customers. A smart grid is a huge complex network composed of millions of devices and entities connected with each other. Such a massive network comes with many security concerns and vulnerabilities. In this paper, we survey the latest on smart grid security. We highlight the complexity of the smart grid network and discuss the vulnerabilities specific to this huge heterogeneous network. We discuss then the challenges that exist in securing the smart grid network and how the current security solutions applied for IT networks are not sufficient to secure smart grid networks. We conclude by over viewing the current and needed security solutions for the smart gird.