Towards Emergent Security in Low-Latency Smart Grids with Distributed Control

IT security management in distributed Smart Grids has been discussed in a number of recent works, mainly from the viewpoint of how to prevent unauthorized access, either organizationally or cryptographically. In this paper, we aim to extend this viewpoint by introducing the concept of emergent security in cyber-physical energy systems. The main contribution of this paper is the description of four architectural layers, providing a structured approach for security assessment and evaluation. The proposed emergent security layer shifts the perspective of IT security towards incorporating real-time measurements, decoupling feedback of components, increasing topology awareness, and implementing distributed counter-measures and participant reputation systems. We propose an iterative process for designing resilient distributed control algorithms for Smart Grids. This process acknowledges the new challenges for security management in critical infrastructures due to the recent advances in interconnectivity of systems. The proposed approach is validated using an implementation of Smart Grid control and a co-simulation of a cyber-physical energy system, indicating the importance of the introduced emergent security layer.