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Prof. Dr. Marcin Niemiec

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Guest Editor

Department of Telecommunications, AGH University of Science and Technology, Al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Interests: cybersecurity; security services; symmetric ciphers; intrusion detection; malware analysis; risk management; quantum cryptography
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Dr. Robert Ryszard Chodorek

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Department of Telecommunications, AGH University of Science and Technology, Al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Interests: cybersecurity; Internet of Things; unmanned aerial vehicles; broadband communications; IP networking; multimedia communications; cloud computing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The ongoing evolution of information technology (IT) continues to pose new challenges, including for energy systems. As telecommunication networks become an integral part of today’s world, new threats are emerging. Therefore, the continuous development of cybersecurity solutions is needed. The rapid development of cryptography techniques, machine learning, quantum technology, and other solutions has helped us to develop innovative security methods and algorithms. As such, this Special Issue mainly focuses on recent advances in cybersecurity for effective data protection in energy systems to ensure a high level of cybersecurity and to prevent cyberthreats.

We invite both theoretical and experimental studies in the field of cybersecurity solutions for energy systems. The proposed papers should consist of novel and original ideas and results. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Cybersecurity solutions of energy systems;
Security of smart grids;
Cryptography techniques and protocols;
Network security solutions;
Data and privacy protection;
Security services using emerging technologies, e.g., blockchain, etc.;
Security services in emerging technologies, e.g., Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, unmanned vehicles, etc.;
Detection and mitigation of cyberattacks;
Technology challenges and opportunities in cybersecurity.

Prof. Dr. Marcin Niemiec
Dr. Robert Ryszard Chodorek
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

cybersecurity of energy systems
smart grids
machine learning for cybersecurity
cyberattacks and intrusion detection methods
Internet of Things
unmanned vehicles
cryptography
blockchain
threat intelligence
cybersecurity challenges and opportunities

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 360 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Internet Threat Detection in Smart Grids Based on Network Traffic Analysis Using LSTM, IF, and SVM

by Szymon Stryczek and Marek Natkaniec

Energies 2023, 16(1), 329; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16010329 - 28 Dec 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 1679

Abstract

The protection of users of ICT networks, including smart grids, is a challenge whose importance is constantly growing. Internet of Things (IoT) or Internet of Energy (IoE) devices, as well as network resources, store more and more information about users. Large institutions use extensive security systems requiring large and expensive resources. For smart grid users, this becomes difficult. Efficient methods are needed to take advantage of limited sets of traffic features. In this paper, machine learning techniques to verify network events for recognition of Internet threats were analyzed, intentionally using a limited number of parameters. The authors considered three machine learning techniques: Long Short-Term Memory, Isolation Forest, and Support Vector Machine. The analysis is based on two datasets. In the paper, the data preparation process is also described. Eight series of results were collected and compared with other studies. The results showed significant differences between the techniques, the size of the datasets, and the balance of the datasets. We also showed that a more accurate classification could be achieved by increasing the number of analyzed features. Unfortunately, each increase in the number of elements requires more extensive analysis. The work ends with a description of the steps that can be taken in the future to improve the operation of the models and enable the implementation of the described methods of analysis in practice. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Security and Data Protection for Energy Systems)

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18 pages, 548 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Sponge-Based Key Expansion Scheme for Modern Block Ciphers

by Maciej Sawka and Marcin Niemiec

Energies 2022, 15(19), 6864; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15196864 - 20 Sep 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1720

Abstract

Many systems in use today require strong cryptographic primitives to ensure confidentiality and integrity of data. This is especially true for energy systems, such as smart grids, as their proper operation is crucial for the existence of a functioning society. Because of this, we observe new developments in the field of cryptography every year. Among the developed primitives, one of the most important and widely used are iterated block ciphers. From AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) to LEA (Lightweight Encryption Algorithm), these ciphers are omnipresent in our world. While security of the encryption process of these ciphers is often meticulously tested and verified, an important part of them is neglected—the key expansion. Many modern ciphers use key expansion algorithms which produce reversible sub-key sequences. This means that, if the attacker finds out a large-enough part of this sequence, he/she will be able to either calculate the rest of the sequence, or even the original key. This could completely compromise the cipher. This is especially concerning due to research done into side-channel attacks, which attempt to leak secret information from memory. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme which can be used to create key expansion algorithms for modern ciphers. We define two important properties that a sequence produced by such algorithm should have and ensure that our construction fulfills them, based on the research on hashing functions. In order to explain the scheme, we describe an example algorithm constructed this way, as well as a cipher called IJON which utilizes it. In addition to this, we provide results of statistical tests which show the unpredictability of the sub-key sequence produced this way. The tests were performed using a test suite standardized by NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology). The methodology of our tests is also explained. Finally, the reference implementation of the IJON cipher is published, ready to be used in software. Based on the results of tests, we conclude that, while more research and more testing of the algorithm is advised, the proposed key expansion scheme provides a very good generation of unpredictable bits and could possibly be used in practice. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Security and Data Protection for Energy Systems)

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