Software-Defined Access Control in Smart Grids

The smart grids make the electricity power systems automated and intelligent by using advanced technologies such as IoT smart sensors and meters, and communication technologies. This automation and intelligent processing render the power systems more vulnerable to different types of severe cyberattacks like DDoS, man-in-the-middle and desynchronization attacks. Making smart grids robust against attacks requires to use strong access control and encryption techniques. The existing access control models in smart grids focus on user authentication and data encryption, limiting the model’s ability to respond effectively to various types of known and unknown cyberattacks. To bridge this research gap, in this paper, we propose a software-defined (SD) access control model in smart grids. SD-access programmatically deploys an appropriate access control model in the edge routers/devices based on the user and their endpoint authentication and context, leveraging CISCO’s digital network architecture and identity services engine. To the best of our knowledge, SD-access control has not been applied in smart grids yet. The security group policy is formulated considering the application and network security contexts. The efficacy of the proposed model is analyzed with the scenarios of electrical smart grids. Access control based on SD-access will make the smart grids more reliable, resilient and robust against known and unknown cyberattacks.