Supervisor

Suitable for

Abstract

Co-supervised by Systems Security Lab

Power-Line Communication (PLC) has gained great popularity as a solution for extending network coverage within homes, especially in areas where WiFi signals cannot reach. The primary benefit lies in leveraging the existing electrical wiring infrastructure, eliminating the necessity for extra wiring or specialized network installations. This makes PLC a cost-effective and convenient option for deployment.

As a result, PLC has also seen a wide adoption in power grid and critical infrastructure applications in recent years. For example, for the interconnection of smart meters. Another example is the Combined Charging System (CCS), one of the most widely adopted DC fast charging standards for Electric Vehicles (EVs), which uses PLC for the communication between the vehicle and the charging station. This communication channel is used to exchange safety critical information, such as battery temperature, maximum charging voltage and current, and state of charge.

Unfortunately, our recent research has shown that the PLC communication used by CCS is vulnerable to wireless attacks on the physical layer [1, 2]. We demonstrated that an adversary can eavesdrop on the communication and showed that the charging communication can easily be disrupted. Given the nature of PLC and its tendency to crosstalk, both attacks can be conducted wirelessly and from a distance.

In this project, the student will explore PLC security in different contexts, such as smart homes and smart metering infrastructure. Initially, the focus will be on adapting and replicating wireless attacks from previous work. The second phase will involve evaluating new and more advanced attack techniques, along with exploring potential countermeasures.

https://github.com/ssloxford/brokenwire

https://gitlab.com/rbaker/hpgp-emis-rx

[1] Baker and Martinovic. "Losing the car keys: Wireless PHY-layer insecurity in EV charging." USENIX, 2019.

[2] Köhler et al. "Brokenwire: Wireless disruption of ccs electric vehicle charging." Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2023.

Pre-requisites: Some familiarity in the area of digital signal processing and with Python.