A Survey on Threats and Vulnerabilities in Smart Metering Infrastructures

The smart grid initiative aims at transforming today's public power grid into a flexible and intelligent energy utility. The basis for this advancement is the detailed monitoring of the grid status and energy consumption behavior of connected stakeholders in order to implement powerful control mechanisms, flexible billing processes, and unmatched value-added services. However, these advantages do not come without costs. System components grow in complexity and increasing integration of power grid control systems with information and communication technology (ICT) leads to novel security and privacy challenges. Therefore, this paper deals with a structured analysis of vulnerabilities and threats that have the potential to hinder the functioning and wide adoption of automatic metering in smart grids. This analysis provides valuable input for further specification and development of critical system components and security and privacy protection mechanisms.