Cybersecurity Deployment in Smart Grids: Critical Review, Applications, Protection, and Challenges

Soaring energy demand in power sector demands an intelligent electricity grid which is able to meet the energy requirements of consumers with higher efficiency and reliability. This paper discusses about how Smart Grid (SG) is the solution for such requirements in the energy sector. SG constitutes of three main components: Information Technology (IT), Operational Technology (OT), and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). It is important to synchronize these three components in order to seamlessly deliver electricity to the consumers connected to the electric network. Cyberattack is increasing sharply in the SG infrastructure and triggers disrupting or malicious manipulation of entire electricity network. It is crucial to maintain the data traffic, power transmission and distribution with high reliability. This paper aims at arriving at the taxonomy of attacks that are subjected to IT, OT and AMI components of SG. This exhaustive taxonomy further opens avenues to evolve mitigation strategies for these attacks which will eventually aid in SG protection. Elaborate discussion about various mitigation strategies for various types of attacks is performed. The systematic approach of methods and techniques along with the type of solution it provides to SG applications is discussed. It is evident from literature that Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL) and signal processing techniques are very efficient and robust in attack detection and retaliating in SG. ML model pro. Hence the importance of framework and tools in SG environment is analyzed. A case study is also presented that emphasizes on SG Attacks on the specific system and its mitigation strategies.