Impact of Passive and Active Security Attacks on MIMO Smart Grid Communications

We consider multiple source nodes (consumers) communicating wirelessly their energy demands to the meter data-management system (MDMS) over the subarea gateway(s). We quantify the impact of passive and active security attacks on the reliability and security of the wireless communications system and the energy-demand estimation error cost in dollars incurred by the utility. We adopt a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) multiantenna-eavesdropper wiretap channel model. To secure the MIMO wireless communication system, the legitimate nodes generate artificial noise signals to mitigate the effect of the passive eavesdropping security attacks. Furthermore, we propose a redundant gateway design where multiple gateways are assumed to coexist in each subarea to forward the consumers' energy-demand messages. We quantify the redundant designs impact on the communication reliability between the consumers and the MDMS and on the energy-demand estimation error cost.