<scp>SAKM</scp>: A Scalable and Adaptive Key Management for Securing Demand‐Response Bidirectional Communications in <scp>AMI</scp> of Next‐Generation Smart Grids

ABSTRACT Rapid advancement in information and communication technology () has led to the emergence of smart grids as a revolutionary new generation power system. Advanced metering infrastructure () is a crucial component of smart grids, facilitating two‐way communication between smart meters and data control unit (). Three unique aspects of , in contrast to other systems, need special attention: the hybrid modes of message transmission, the storage and processing limitations of smart meters, and dynamic participants in demand response () programs. Communication through public networks in of smart girds () poses critical issues for the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive messages. In recent years, various key management schemes () have been proposed to provide secure message transmission in of next‐generation . However, these schemes still suffer from various security flaws and performance issues. In this work, we present an adaptive and scalable key management scheme that works efficiently in . Additionally, the proposed approach does not necessitate changes to the keys of existing smart meters when a smart meter () enters or exits the demand response group. As a result, if the group membership changes, the computational cost of updating the keys for and is reduced to . We use the ProVerif 1.93 tool and the Random Oracle Model () to thoroughly verify the security of our suggested scheme. Informal security analysis shows that our suggested work provides protections against various security attacks and meets all the needs of safe transmission in groups of . Our suggested scheme guarantees both backward and forward secrecy. Our scheme significantly lowers computation and communication overhead compared to existing schemes, as evidenced by performance analysis.