Quantum cryptography to protect electric grid security
February 18, 2013
A miniature transmitter communicates with a trusted authority via fiber optic cables to generate random cryptographic keys to encode and decode information (credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have completed the first-ever demonstration of using quantum cryptography to make control data for electric grids secure .
Controllers for the electric distribution grid tend to be vulnerable to intrusion.
The electric grid also needs to accommodate new renewable energy sources, such as solar panels and wind generators, because their availability can fluctuate on short time scales.
Control data must be both trustworthy (with strong authentication), but also delivered without delays, which standard cryptographic techniques cannot provide (they operate too slowly).
Quantum cryptography provides a means of detecting and defeating an adversary who might try to intercept or attack the communications. Single photons are used to produce secure random numbers between users, and these random numbers are then used to authenticate and encrypt the grid control data and commands. Because the random numbers are produced securely, they act as cryptographic key material for data authentication and encryption algorithms.
At the heart of the new quantum-secured communications system is a unique, miniaturized quantum-computer transmitter invention, known as a QKarD. It is 100,000 times smaller than any competing quantum-computing device, according to Jane Nordholt, the Los Alamos principal investigator.
“This project shows that quantum cryptography is compatible with electric-grid control communications, providing strong security assurances rooted in the laws of physics, without introducing excessive delays in data delivery,” said Nordholt.
The new system provides the necessary strong security assurances, as well as latencies (time to send a message) that are at least 100 smaller than requirements — typically 250 microseconds, including 120 microseconds to traverse the 25 kilometers of optical fiber connecting the two experimental nodes.
Further, the team’s quantum-secured communications system demonstrated that this capability could be deployed with only a single optical fiber to carry the quantum, single-photon communications signals as well as data packets and commands. “Moreover, our system is scalable to multiple monitors and several control centers,” said Richard Hughes, the co-principal investigator from Los Alamos.
The Los Alamos team is seeking funding to develop a next-generation QKarD using integrated electro-photonics methods, which would be even smaller and more highly integrated, and would allow for a manufacturing process that would result in much lower unit costs.
Comments (8)
by Klaatu
Great move. Didn’t Sen. McCain just announce, for the hundredth
time, that standards guarding against hacking “are too troublesome
and expensive” for adoption by private industry. The President
and his CIA chief know that if anything happens on a large scale
it will be beyond just politically embarrassing. When Rush & Beck
get going no one wiil remember standards or who said what when
the lights go out in entire sections & w/o being able to trace how
or who.
by Leonardo Arenas
Can these detect and preempt possible electromagnetic waves intrusion of our space by extra terrestrials?
by Editor
That question could probably be better answered over on the David Icke website: http://www.davidicke.com/articles/ufo-activity-mainmenu-69
by rich
Thank you for that reference. I was not familiar with Mr. Icke.
by GAUSS
This is excellent. Finally we can get some relief from the onslaught of hacking all over the place.
by asiwel
Well, I wouldn’t count too all that much on that. But we truly need a scalable, upgradeable, efficient “smart grid.” Perhaps part of that “smartness” might be a conceptual and functional model of how the grid is supposed to be working at various times and conditions – i.e. a “skeptical grid” that would think about and possibly not be as easily fooled by hackers sending odd or suspicious commands, encrypted or not. This smart grid might act more like an intelligent consumer who doesn’t necessarily trust advertisements (which are essentially intended to “hack” the mind sometimes!).
by Bri
I like this suggestion of a smart smart grid. I’ve often thought along a similar line of thinking. My thoughts were more of that this would happen naturally as computers become smarter. Basically the concept that you said. That it wouldn’t do things that would jeopardize the users. This is applicable to implanted medical devices, automated homes, automobiles, etc. That they are subcells of a VIKKI system. This could be particularly useful in personal computer devices and nodes of the web. That they would be self policing and draw attention to hacking activities. As we come closer to the singularity I think this will be more able to happen. That everything starts to become self aware and aware of it place and relationship to the whole. The smart dust that the military wants to use is a good example of how much it could be everywhere. This would be particularly effective against the gray goo. It would be hard to perform a gray goo attack if everything everywhere might be alarmed by it’s presence. It’s kind of like big brother taken to the extreme. I think this is coming about to some extent already. That the Internet is getting an antibody type response to viruses.
by asiwel
Yes, thinking a little more about this general idea. We talk a lot about smart or “intelligent” machines … but usually we are really talking about very sophisticated automated controllers, using sensors and data feedback loops, etc. We are seldom talking about “self-aware” machines. These (like us) would have an internal “model” of themselves and their role and purpose (or goal) in addition. They would have “values” and “attitudes” (i.e., predispositions for actions) and they would compare “perceptions” with this internal model and the likely predictable consequences of behaviors.. before “acting”. They would be “aware” that external efforts may be made to “fool” them as well as that external data is always suspect and error- and accident-prone (just as we are). And they would “know” that they can turn to others (other people … or other machines) for further advice in confusing situations. Thus, we might have a very smart “smart grid” … but not an infallible (and hence blindly obedient) one with “hardwired belief” in its own omniscience.