Secure data exchange framework for smart grid using artificial intelligence and onion routing underlying 5G

Smart grid (SG) has revolutionized the traditional energy sector by reducing its regular electricity costs, helping the environment, and saving finances. However, SG is prone to many security flaws (e.g., data manipulation, denial-of-service, and man-in-the-middle attacks), particularly when relaying smart grid data over the public Internet, using conventional routing techniques. To tackle the aforementioned security problems, we propose an artificial intelligence and onion routing network-based secure data exchange architecture in the SG environment. Onion routing uses anonymous, encrypted routing mechanisms to address prevailing network-related attacks from the smart grid ecosystem. To reduce computational overhead in the onion routing network, we employed machine learning algorithms to classify as malicious or non-malicious before exchanging it between components. We further enhance the security of conventional onion routing networks by incorporating verifying tokens that verify the legitimacy of onion routers. Routers are authorized to forward SG data upon successful validation, ensuring that only trusted nodes participate in the network. To safeguard verifying tokens from data integrity attacks, they are securely stored in the immutable ledger of a blockchain, preventing unauthorized modifications or tampering. Additionally, to mitigate latency issues, we leverage high-speed, low-latency capabilities of 5G networks, significantly improving throughput, reliability, and real-time data transmission. Lastly, the proposed framework is evaluated by considering different evaluation metrics, such as artificial intelligence statistical measures (accuracy (98.86%)), compromisation rate ( > 25%), onion router selection, data compromisation and an anonymity rate, and throughput (28.23 Mbps). • Proposed a secure data exchange framework for SG using AI and onion router network. • Reduced the complexity of high dimensional data. • Employed the onion router network for the secure transmission of SG critical data. • Proposed framework is assessed using statistical and security measures in SG systems.