Blockchain-Enabled Cybersecurity Techniques, Challenges, and Future Directions for Secure Smart Grids

Abstract

The smart grid systems are increasingly becoming digital where the system is taking a new direction into greater operational efficiency and real time energy management. The increased number of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and communication networks has widened the area of attack as well, thus smart grids are vulnerable to more sophisticated cyber attacks like false data injection, denial-of-data manipulation and service attacks. The traditional centralized security controls are not sufficient because of the limitation of single point failure, scalability limitations, and demand decentralized and resilient security controls. The use of blockchain technology in this regard has become a potential solution in order to improve the level of security by utilizing the transparent, decentralized, and immutable features of the technology. To provide cybersecurity approaches of smart grid systems, a taxonomical structure of blockchain technology is proposed in this paper. Besides that it shows the categorization of the various techniques into secure data management, secure energy trading, device authentication, data integrity assurance and communication protection. A detailed analysis of existing works was undertaken to determine their efficiency based on the security, scale and complexity of implementation. The results of the review describe some of the major challenges, such as latency and energy overhead and provide future research opportunities on effective smart grid security frameworks.