A Trend Oriented Power System Security

challenge is to improve the access controls to the SCADA networks. A solution will make it harder for an attacker to

In Western power grid attack, APT was well organized. They used both active and passive reconnaissance methods to gather information. We have found the traces of attackers IP in the network logs provided by Intelligence services. This tells us that attackers had used Active Reconnaissance to get network

Within the realm of open source information, a trove of resources are readily available delineating locations of individual power plants, major electrical lines, and sub stations serving the United States and Illinois. Most apparent is not necessarily the ease of access to information, but how piecing together the varied, disparate data can be used to create a picture that show location, connectivity, and potential vulnerabilities to national and state-level power grid.

The 2003 northeast blackout that saw about 50 million people from the northeast US and southeast Canada lose power for about 2 days at the cost of $6 billion dollars according to JR Minkel (Minkle) and was the biggest blackout in North American history (Minkle). The disaster lead to a report that showed the blackout was caused by a combination of human error and equipment failure. To prevent issues like this in the future a “smart grid” needs to be developed that would monitor and repair itself in the event of problems. Essentially computers and applications would be the first responder when there is an equipment failure on the grid. The problem with this solution is that by placing more of the control of the power grid into the hands of computers and applications, it opens up the grid to cyber-attacks. The economic impact of a total or even partial failure of the power grid is astronomical and makes a very appealing target to those who wish to cause

The idea is that if a virus could do that much damage to Iran’s nuclear power program; what could a virus or attack do to our less secure electric power grids. Furthermore, examples of how an attack could occur and the amount of damage that could be caused. Finally, the author offers insight into how you can be vigilant with personal security online.

The explosion of these new technologies, especially an Internet-like communications network, may introduce some new threats to the security of the smart grid. In the smart grid network there are three crucial aspects of security that may be threatened due to the CIA-triad. The CIA-triad comprises on three basic principles of security issues: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability [8]. These principles are illustrated in a triangle secure system in Figure 2. The three aspects of the CIA-triad are defined as follows.

PPD-21 establishes national policy on critical infrastructure security and resistance. The directive mentions 16 critical infrastructure sectors vital to the integrity of the U.S. system and their associated Federal Sector-Specific Agency (SSA). Nevertheless, PPD-21 demands a shared responsibility among the Federal, SLTT, and public and private owners and operators of critical infrastructure. Resiliency, in the context of CIP, consists of the ability to minimize the impact of a “disruptive event,” whether in “magnitude, impact, or duration” p.12. As 85% of CIKR resides under the control of the private sector, government leaders must ensure private operators and stakeholders participate in protection initiatives, which can be accomplished by

Wheeler Dam, Wilson Dam, and Brown's Ferry Nuclear Plant are all located in North Alabama and are all TVA power-producing facilities. The work of Johnston (2010) states that threats include considerations including "Who might attack against what assets, using what resources, with what goal in mind, when/where/why, and with what probability." (Johnston, 2010, p.1) Threat assessment involves "attempting to predict the treats. This may involve using intelligence data and information on past security incidents." (Johnston, 2010, p.1) Proactive security makes a requirement of "anticipating threats that have not yet materialized." (Johnston, 2010, p.1) The following illustration shows the three locations in the Tennessee Valley Region of North Alabama.

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System Network systems (SCADA), Distributed Control System (DCS) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are examples of controlling their Critical Infrastructure. Because once the hackers are able to gain access to the SCADA Network system and sabotage the system, then the Critical Infrastructure would lead to cyberwar and chaos.

Present power system is in need of a high level of redundancy and reliable protection devices along with the periodic maintenance to keep the system healthy. In these circumstances, there is a need for an efficient protection

The DOE was established to organize disjointed regulatory processes and create a national energy plan (Kuder et al., 2010). One of the main functions of the DOE is to monitor and report on the security of the smart grid. The primary objective of the reports are to provide data that may be

The United States electrical grid is essentially divided into three electric networks covering Texas, the West and the East. All these networks comprise many thousands of miles of lines of transmission, substations and power plants, a hundred year old combination of domestic utilities (Broick, 2013). Recently the system has been modernized and thus has been experiencing cyber- attack threat. The increasing dependence on the communications based on the internet has raised the vulnerability of the operation and control systems to hackers and spies. National security of the U.S. reported that the Cyber spies have made a way into the electrical grid of the nation and left behind software programs that would be applied to disrupt the system and maybe shut down areas of the network for a considerably long period of time (Broick, 2013). A coordinated cyber-attack could thus compromise security, blackout commerce and destroy the power grid of the United

The potential impact of a breach to DTL’s power grid can significantly affect not just the 5.4 million customers, but can have cascading effects across to the other sectors. The electric grid has many interdependencies with the other sectors that link corporate systems together, providing access to customers, suppliers, and other entities (Zhen, 2013). The threat is goes beyond the proprietary information and other sensitive information contained in the corporate systems, there is also the threat to the control systems that are tied in to these networks.

The danger of cyber-attacks on power plants are something that needs to be looked at closely to avoid costly deadly incidents. Cybersecurity has become a vital component of our world today and it needs to evolve fast to keep up in its protection from the outside. Cybersecurity protects us from unauthorized shutdowns, break-ins, financial and social ruin. We live in a world that has become completely reliant on computers for everything. They are able to cause chaos and even shutdown “nuclear centrifuges, air defense systems, and electrical grids.” (Hathaway, Crootof, Levitiz, Nix, Nowlan, Perdue & Spiegel, 2012) Cyber-attacks are more common today due to the increase capability of technology. Important information along with every aspect of people’s lives are kept on computers or cell phones which are vulnerable at all times. An example of this would be the leaked snapchat photos of celebrities, stolen identities and unauthorized access from an outside computer into a power plant.

With the increasing loads, voltages and short-circuit duty in distribution system, over current protection has become more important today. The ability of protection system is demanded not only for economic reason but also consumers just expect ‘reliable’ service. In a Power System Protection, the system engineer would need a device that can monitor current, voltage, frequency, temperature and in some case over power in the system. Thus a device called Protective Relay is created to serve the purpose. The protective relay is most often relay coupled with Circuit Breaker such that it can isolate the abnormal condition in the system. In the interest of reliable