Smart Meter Performance Under Wired and Wireless Cyber Security Attack

Utility companies have deployed millions of smart meters to remotely gather real-time data on power consumption from client premises on a regular basis. It provides utility service providers with the power consumption data to remotely manage their customers’ electricity usage. Given the importance of these data, it’s crucial to make sure that any information collected locally at smart meters or transmitted remotely via wired or wireless network is trustworthy, private and secure. The security risks associated with smart meters are constantly evolving, and more security breaches occurring frequently. Research on data security breaches for wired or wireless smart meters—whether available for residential or commercial use and how they affect the finances of the companies that deploy them is currently lacking. In this work, we conducted experiments to assess the performance of wired and wireless smart meters under cyber security attacks, with the goal of comparing their performance under different network configurations, and to understand the financial implications for utility companies for the compromised power consumption data.