Quantum-Resistant Authentication for Smart Grid

Abstract

We are currently at the beginning of a great technological transformation of our electrical power grids. These new grids will be “smart” as a result of improved communication and control systems but will also have new vulnerabilities. A smart grid will be better able to incorporate new forms of energy generations as well as be self-healing and more reliable. This chapter investigates a threat to wireless communication networks from a fully realized quantum computer and provides a means to avoid this problem in smart grid domains. This chapter examines the security, complexities and performance of device authentication in wireless mesh networks (WMN) using public-key encryption and then using Merkle trees. As a result, the authors argue for the use of Merkle trees as opposed to public-key encryption for authentication of devices in WMN used in smart grid applications.