Design Principles for Power Grid Cyber-Infrastructure Authentication Protocols

Recently, there has been an increased focus and a sense of urgency in developing standards for Power Grid systems centered on the need for interoperability. Given the threat against these systems an important goal is the development of effective cyber security standards. However, past experience shows that security protocols are prone to design errors. Focusing on authentication protocols, in this work we discuss key design principles and engineering practices that we believe can help ensure the correctness and effectiveness of standards for authentication in Power Grid protocols; e.g., DNP3. This work builds on past work in the area of principles of authentication in Internet protocols but focuses the discussion on the constraints of the Power Grid; in particular, the need for efficient and highly available systems.