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Cybersecurity challenges in IoT-based smart renewable energy

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Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) makes it possible to collect data from, and issue commands to, devices via the Internet, eliminating the need for humans in the process while increasing productivity, accuracy, and economic value. Therefore, the integration of IoT plays a crucial role in achieving high efficiency and sustainability in the production of renewable energy that could be used to meet future electricity needs. While this approach has many significant benefits, it also opens smart renewable energy to cyberattacks, giving hackers a new window of opportunity to take advantage of renewable energy’s vulnerabilities. This obviously affects the financial and physical functioning of smart renewable energy. This article reviews the literature on cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities in IoT-based smart renewable energy and cyberattacks on power systems. False data injection, replay, denial of service, and brute force credential attacks have been identified as the main threats to IoT-based smart renewable energy. These threats exploit IoT-based smart renewable energy’s vulnerabilities such as the usage of insecure communication protocols, poor encryption techniques, poor hash algorithms, lack of access control, lack of parameter sanitization, and the inappropriate use of authentication alongside encryption. The findings of this review will assist researchers in better understanding the issues surrounding the cybersecurity of IoT-based smart renewable energy and the needs for grid security in light of the exponential growth in the number of renewable energy sources connected to the grid.

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  1. Electronics and Computers Department, Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania

    Alexandre Rekeraho, Daniel Tudor Cotfas, Petru Adrian Cotfas, Titus Constantin Bălan, Emmanuel Tuyishime & Rebecca Acheampong

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  1. Alexandre Rekeraho
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AR and DTC contributed to conceptualization; AR and ET contributed to methodology, resources, and writing—original draft preparation; AR, ET, and RA contributed to investigation; and AR, DTC, TCB, and PAC contributed to writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Rekeraho, A., Cotfas, D.T., Cotfas, P.A. et al. Cybersecurity challenges in IoT-based smart renewable energy. Int. J. Inf. Secur. 23, 101–117 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-023-00732-9

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