Provably Secure ECC-Based Authentication and Key Agreement Scheme for Advanced Metering Infrastructure in the Smart Grid

Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is a vital component of the smart grid (SG) for real-time data access and bidirectional communication. An authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocol is needed for AMI systems to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of communication data. Since the devices are connected to the open network and generally deployed outdoors with limited computation, communication, and storage, designing a suitable AKA protocol is a challenging task. Researchers are still looking for good ways to make the SG secure and efficient simultaneously. To remedy the situation, in this article, we advance a security-enhanced elliptic-curve-cryptography-based AKA protocol, and the security has been proven rigorously under the random oracle model and verified with the ProVerif tool. Furthermore, performance comparison validates the proposed protocol in affording improved security features with lower computation and communication cost. In addition, the proposed scheme is implemented practically on a testbed, which is deployed usingRaspberry Pi 3 Model B+for smart meters.