Cybersecurity challenges in the internet of energy: a survey of attack taxonomies, defense mechanisms, and open issues

The Internet of Energy (IoE) has emerged as an innovative paradigm that combines Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and advanced communication networks to create a highly interconnected and intelligent energy ecosystem. However, cybersecurity has become a pressing concern for the IoE, where millions of heterogeneous and resource-constrained devices communicate across decentralized energy infrastructures. This survey provides a comprehensive overview of IoE cybersecurity challenges, attack vectors, and emerging mitigation approaches. First, we provide background knowledge on the IoE’s layered architecture, spanning physical, network, data, and application levels, examine the role of digital twins as an enabling technology, while also outlining key challenges in IoE large-scale deployment. Next, we investigate the cybersecurity landscape of IoE systems by presenting a structured attack taxonomy, mapping threats vectors across the different architectural layers, analyzing their cascading effects on IoE reliability, and examining key mitigation approaches. Building on these insights, we examine recent security solutions across lightweight cryptography, AI-based anomaly detection, blockchain-based integrity, and hybrid architectures designed to provide comprehensive IoE protection. In addition, we conduct a qualitative evaluation of the identified solutions to highlight current research limitations and unresolved issues. Finally, we highlight key open challenges and research directions to enhance resilience and trust in future IoE deployments.