Attacks and their defenses for advanced metering infrastructure

The smart grid is the digitized, modernized, updated version of archaic traditional electric grid. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) is an imperative part of the smart grid. It has replaced legacy metering, as it reports the energy consumption to the utility automatically through communication channels. AMI is also featuring to communicate control functions from utility to the smart meters. So, both the consumption data and control data needs to be securely transmitted to their ends. Any leak and tempering may produce the dire effects to both utility and consumers. Hence security of AMI is a very important concern to take real advantage of this technology. In this paper, first we analyze the security threats faced by AMI components and then propose the countermeasures to tackle them. The aim is to visualize the possible threats in the context of confidentiality, integrity and availability (CIA Triad) context and propose countermeasure.