# Toward Secure Smart Grid Systems: Risks, Threats, Challenges, and Future Directions
## 3 Limitations and Challenges
### Smart Grid Challenges
This also includes implementing appropriate risk management and mitigation strategies using proactive approaches, including safety protocols, regular maintenance, scheduled physical infrastructure updates, upgrades, and effective emergency response planning [84]. As a result, key safety challenges arise when considering the human factor, which can be the primary reason for this challenge. As a result of these limitations and challenges, many threats arise, which are described in the next section. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{142.3 pt} p{142.3 pt} p{142.3 pt}} \hline \hline
**Category** & **Challenges** & **Description** \\ \hline \multirow{6}{*}{**Security-based**} & \multirow{6}{*}{Advanced Persistent Threats (APT)} & Remain the most dangerous challenge, especially with zero-day exploits and attacks. This makes it extremely difficult to detect and mitigate this threat, which can cause a significant interruption of the smart grid’s services. \\  & & Recruiting operators without proper background screening seems challenging since they can freely operate without monitoring or accountability while conducting malicious information gathering, sabotage, or espionage. However, what seems to be more challenging is finding the right security measures to mitigate this risk. \\  & & Recruiting operators without proper background screening seems challenging since they can freely operate without monitoring or accountability while conducting malicious information gathering, sabotage, or espionage. However, what seems to be more challenging is finding the right security measures to mitigate this risk. \\ \cline{1-1}  & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & & \\ \cline{1-1}  & & \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 9: A set of existing challenges in smart grids. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{113.8 pt} p{113.8 pt} p{113.8 pt}} \hline
**Category** & **Challenges** & **Description** \\ \hline \multirow{8}{*}{Safety-based} & \multirow{8}{*}{Physical Security Challenges} & This requires protecting smart grid devices, systems, transmission lines, and transformers, which is a challenging task, not only in terms of cost but also in terms of deploying proper security measures and intrusion detection alarms. \\ \cline{2-3}  & \multirow{8}{*}{Budget Issues} & The cost to implement, deploy, and maintain a smart grid security program can be costly, which can cause financial problems for stakeholders with limited smart grid capabilities, which makes them abandon the plan and accept the occurrence of the risk as it will be cheaper. \\ \cline{2-3}  & \multirow{8}{*}{Lack of Uniform Security Standards} & This is frequently caused by the complexity of the various types of heterogeneous devices and systems in the smart grid, making it difficult to apply the same security practices and deploy uniform security measures. \\ \cline{2-3}  & \multirow{8}{*}{Legal Challenges} & This is mostly affiliated with cross-border challenges since securing the smart grid’s infrastructure requires coordination and jurisdictions among all the involved countries, which often creates challenging legal and regulatory requirements, especially regarding collaborative security and information sharing. \\ \cline{2-3}  & \multirow{8}{*}{Resilience and Recovery Challenges} & In case of a cyber–physical attack or natural disaster, the smart grid must have the ability to withstand disruption or interruption of services, with the ability to recover. This proves challenging due to the complex number of security and safety threats and the likelihood of their occurrence. \\ \cline{2-3}  & \multirow{8}{*}{Public Health Challenges} & The installation of certain renewable energy technologies close to residential areas negatively impacts human health and animals [85]. \\ \cline{2-3}  & \multirow{8}{*}{Public Health Challenges} & The challenge is based on the level of risk exposure to their emission and radiation and the safe distance needed to evade them. Finding a solution to reduce their emission and radiation remains a key challenge.