A Novel Ultra-Lightweight Authentication Scheme for Two-Way Communication in Smart Grids

With Internet of Things (IoT) devices being adopted, power grids must be modernized in order to meet increased electricity demand. With the smart grid (SG), smart meters (SM) and service providers (SPs) can communicate two-way, which enhances security and efficiency. In traditional SG security schemes, several vulnerabilities can be exploited, such as high computational demands, problems with escrow, and vulnerabilities to certain adversarial models. As part of this paper, a lightweight authentication scheme for SGs is developed to ensure secure memory protection, reliable communication security, and efficient computational requirements. It minimizes overhead while addressing security concerns by combining one-way hash functions with message authentication procedures. According to performance evaluations, the scheme is significantly less intensive on storage and communication than existing methods, making it a promising solution for secure, efficient SG communications.