The existing smart grid device authentication system is concentrated on DCU, meter reading FEP and MDMS, and the authentication system for smart meters is not established. Although some cryptographic chips have been developed at present, it is difficult to complete the PKI authentication scheme because it is at the low level of simple encryption. Unlike existing power grids, smart grids are based on open two-way communication, increasing the risk of accidents as information security vulnerabilities increase.
However, PKI is difficult to apply to smart meters, and there is a possibility of accidents such as system shutdown by sending manipulated packets and sending false information to the operating system. Issuing an existing PKI certificate to smart meters with high hardware constraints makes authentication and certificate renewal difficult, so an ultra-lightweight password authentication protocol that can operate even on the poor performance of smart meters (such as non-IP networks, processors, memory, and storage space) was designed and implemented. As a result of the experiment, lightweight cryptographic authentication protocol was able to be executed quickly in the Cortex-M3 environment, and it is expected that it will help to prepare a more secure authentication system in the smart grid industry.