An elliptic curve-based lightweight mutual authentication scheme for secure communication in smart grids

The energy balance between consumers and the smart grid is preserved using data transferred from the smart grids' devices to either the utility centers or the remote-control centers. However, the attackers could interfere with this data flow which could lead to an energy imbalance. Therefore, it is imperative to have a strong authentication system. In this paper, a lightweight authentication scheme based on elliptic curve cryptography is proposed for securing communications in smart grid. The proposed scheme permits the formation of a secret session key between a smart grids' device and a utility center to securely exchange sensitive data using this key. The proposed scheme can achieve mutual authentication, perfect forward secrecy, guarantee smart grid devices' anonymity and untraceability, and withstand various types of attacks in smart grids. Furthermore, compared to other recent relevant schemes, in terms of computing cost and communication overhead, the suggested scheme outperforms the related schemes and offers better security.