Smart Grid (SG) infrastructure is an energy network connected with computer networks for communication over the internet and intranets. The revolution of SGs has also introduced new avenues of security threats. Although Digital Certificates provide countermeasures, however, one of the issues that exist, is how to efficiently distribute certificate revocation information among Edge devices. The conventional mechanisms, including certificate revocation list (CRL) and online certificate status protocol (OCSP), are subjected to some limitations in energy efficient environments like SG infrastructure. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper proposes a scheme incorporating the advantages and strengths of the fog computing. The fog node can be used for this purpose with much better resources closer to the edge. Keeping the resources closer to the edge strengthen the security aspect of smart grid networks. Similarly, a fog node can act as an intermediate Certification Authority (CA) (i.e., Fog Node as an Intermediate Certification Authority (FONICA)). Further, the proposed scheme has reduced storage, communication, processing overhead, and latency for certificate verification at edge devices. Furthermore, the proposed scheme reduces the attack surface, even if the attacker becomes a part of the network.

The widespread use of the Internet and the rapid growth of edge devices have increased the cyber-attack surface for these devices in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Attackers target edge devices due to their widespread use as essential components of daily life, driven by the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution and the 6G ecosystem. Protecting these devices from cyber attacks is crucial, given their limited storage, processing capabilities, and battery resources. Additional challenges include diversity, the swift development of numerous devices, and hardware trust issues. Existing security solutions are ill-suited for the resource-constrained environments (RCE) of IoT and 6G. This article conducts a comprehensive analysis of the applicability of cyber attacks in RCE and identifies attacks across four layers of the IoT protocol stack. This study reveals that 82% of application-layer attacks can be detected through network traffic analysis. Secondly, the technical requirements for trust architectures, models, modules, parameters, key technologies, and applications are presented. Third, a review of recently proposed trust management solutions, considering trust modules, is presented. In this context, 95% of the schemes address trust composition, while 58% focus on the trust propagation module, highlighting the need for effective trust management solutions to address these challenges. Additionally, this article analyzes the principles of Zero-Trust Architecture (ZTA) for resource-constrained devices. Furthermore, future research directions and open challenges for designing such solutions are also identified.

The rapid growth of the internet and edge devices has greatly increased the risk of cyber-attacks at the edge layer of computer networks. The rise of edge devices has driven extensive research into their cybersecurity challenges. These devices require robust protection to counter possible cyberattacks. Trust is a key security parameter used to determine the level of protection required for a device.. Trustworthiness gives confidence to other devices before they offer or request a service. The trust value indicates the probability of risk that a device may incur while engaging with another device. There are various solutions, but many fail due to the diversity of edge devices in the Internet of Things. In this paper, an efficient trust management framework, APPLETA, has been proposed. It computes the trust value based on routine application transactions and authentication behaviours without additional overhead. Simulation results show that the trust value is computed more efficiently, using only one application transaction trust parameter. APPLETA has demonstrated better results against good and bad-mouthing attacks with two parameters: application transaction and authentication. This scheme can effectively segregate malicious and harmless nodes. This segregation can further assist in the precise detection of malicious nodes.

The rapid growth of the Internet and the increasing number of edge devices have expanded the cyber-attack surface at the edge layer. Hackers exploit vulnerabilities at various levels of a network by either directly connecting to it or accessing it over the Internet. In both scenarios, edge devices remain a primary target due to their widespread use, limited resources and critical impact. Therefore, securing edge devices is essential to counter both local and global cyber threats. Trust is a key factor in determining the level of protection required for edge devices. It can be used to assess the reliability of other devices before offering or requesting services. Since edge devices are often globally interconnected, trust levels should be verifiable across the Internet and intranet. In this paper, we propose the Globally Integrated Trust Authority (GITA), a framework that distributes verifiable trust values across networks and the Internet while minimizing communication overhead. Experimental results demonstrate that GITA improves the efficiency of trust value distribution and verification among nodes compared to digital certificates, while maintaining the same level of protection.. This approach enables effective identification of malicious and benign nodes, enhancing the precision of malicious node detection locally and globally.