Evaluating wireless network vulnerabilities and attack paths in smart grid comprehensive analysis and implementation

Quantifying vulnerability and security levels for smart grid diversified link of networks have been a challenging task for a long period of time. Security experts and network administrators used to act based on their proficiencies and practices to mitigate network attacks rather than objective metrics and models. This paper uses the Markov Chain Model [1] to evaluate quantitatively the vulnerabilities associated to the 802.11 Wi-Fi network in a smart grid. Administrator can now assess the level of severity of potential attacks based on determining the probability density of the successive states and thus, providing the corresponding security measures. This model is based on the observed vulnerabilities provided by the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database explored by MITRE [2] to calculate the Markov processes (states) transitions probabilities and thus, deducing the vulnerability level of the entire attack paths in an attack graph. Cumulative probabilities referring to high vulnerability level in a specific attack path will lead the system administrator to apply appropriate security measures a priori to potential attacks occurrence.