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Providing Cyber Security: Industry Steps Up

By David Batz, Cyber Security Risk Manager, Alliant Energy, August, 18, 2009 - Today's natural gas transmission and distribution systems depend on computer technology and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems to operate safely and efficiently. In the United States alone, there are nearly 300,000 miles of transmission pipe and 1.2 million miles of distribution mains, 814,000 miles of service lines and about 65 million services. more...
Article Viewed 1067 Times | 2 Comments

EMP: A Poorly Understood Threat

By Alan Roth, Chief Risk Officer and Vice President, Advanced Fusion Systems LLC, July, 21, 2009 - Grid security managers are experiencing growing concern over cyber security while another serious threat, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), has received very little attention. An electromagnetic pulse attack can have a devastating impact on the grid, rendering it useless perhaps for many years. While it is generally considered a low frequency/high consequence threat, recent developments regarding both human-caused EMP and the likelihood of geomagnetic storms significantly increase the chances of a major hit. Protective activity needs to be jump-started if appropriate measures are to be in place before it's too late. more...
Article Viewed 2432 Times | 8 Comments

A Proactive Approach to Detecting Energy Theft, Now

By Michael Madrazo, Founder and President, Detectent, June, 16, 2009 - Automatic Meter Infrastructure (AMI) promises to assist utilities in the identification of energy theft cases when it is deployed in the coming years. In fact, most AMI business cases take advantage of this potential by including an operational efficiency that reduces "Unaccounted for Energy (UFE)" which is a pleasant description of energy theft. Specifically this means that AMI will help identify situations where energy is used but not paid for. The percentage of overall operational efficiencies attributed to UFE is in the range of zero to 20 percent, with most being in the 8 to 10 percent range. more...
Article Viewed 1814 Times | 1 Comments

Building the Smart Grid: Proven Methods to Secure the Future

By Joshua Pennell, President and Founder, IOActive, May, 19, 2009 - The push for greener, more efficient energy distribution is driving the rapid development and deployment of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technology, or smart meters. Smart meters are considered to be just one technology platform within an overall suite of maturing smart grid energy management technologies. These technologies will foster the modernization of the nation's electrical power infrastructure into what will ultimately become the cornerstone for the power grid of tomorrow. In conjunction with the approved $4.5 billion economic stimulus package, the need to create U.S. jobs and a rapidly evolving market space, this long-awaited advancement to the U.S. power infrastructure has become a reality today. But is the technology ready? more...
Article Viewed 5026 Times | 5 Comments

Assessing Cyber-Physical System Security

By Kate Rowland, Editor-in-Chief, Intelligent Utility Topic Centers, Energy Central, April, 20, 2009 - The electric power grid is a highly automated network, with a variety of communication networks interconnected to it in order to sense, monitor and control the electricity flowing through it. With that high level of automation, however, comes the challenge of protecting it. more...
Article Viewed 1921 Times | 1 Comments

Beyond NERC CIP: The Changing Horizon of Grid Security

By Kate Rowland, Editor-in-Chief, Intelligent Utility Topic Centers, Energy Central, March, 16, 2009 -

No longer freshly minted, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation -- Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC-CIP) standards, which have been in place now for a year, brought the industry a set of basic cyber-security must-haves. more...
Article Viewed 2017 Times | 1 Comments

Strengthening Cyber Security: Center Advises Utilities

By Alan Paller, Director of Research, The SANS Institute, February, 17, 2009 - Remote attacks on systems that control power production and distribution are no longer hypothetical events. At least four utilities have been subjected to extortion demands by criminals who used the Internet to infect the utilities' computers and caused or threatened power outages. Cyber attacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. These are criminal acts, but nation-states are actively targeting utility computers, as well, so that in time of war they can turn off their adversary's power. more...
Article Viewed 1858 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

Solar storms: how much grid liability they imply

By Alberto Ramirez Orquin, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, January, 20, 2009 - Our ever-increasing dependence on technology makes the notion of bearing any long-term lack of service from our precious critical infrastructures socially unthinkable. On the other hand, there is an atypical, nature-made scenario which we have been warned may pose a severe challenge to this proposition. more...
Article Viewed 3462 Times | 7 Comments

NERC CIP is a Cyber Security Step in the Right Direction, But Utilities Need to Keep Walking Further Up That Road

By Neal Westermeyer, Chief Operating Officer, Aegis Technologies Inc., May, 22, 2008 - Over 50 years ago, the Ford Motor Company built a good part of its sales and marketing efforts around the “Lifeguard” design that enhanced the safety of its passenger cars. Nearly ten years ahead of federally-imposed standards, the creators of the revolutionary Model T and so many other automobile industry innovations made a safer steering wheel and stronger door locks standard in1956, and the company also urged car buyers to opt for seat belts, a padded dashboard, recessed instruments and a safer rear view mirror.

However, the public did not buy into the need for the extra-cost safety features, and the talk of the industry echoed disillusioned sentiments ascribed to Henry Ford II – that his company was selling safety while Chevrolet was selling cars.

And in the decade that followed, despite seat belts and other safety features beginning to appear in the early 1960’s, with belts becoming mandatory by 1965, traffic fatalities rose steadily. They peaked at more than 54,000 in the early 1970’s before further safety equipment standards were mandated and helped reverse this tragic trend. Today, in a country with over 300 million people traveling approximately three times the vehicle miles of 25 years ago, the traffic death rate is now a third of what it was at its peak back then.

Meanwhile, as the automotive industry’s improving track record was emerging, the utility industry’s safety performance was – as it had always been and continues to be – strongly committed to safety, with a largely exemplary history of both safety and reliability.

But with the tragic events of September 11, 2001, as well as the August 2003 Northeast Blackout, the “definitions” of and public concern about safety, security and reliability changed. One outcome involved the utility industry and its followers taking a much closer look at security in the entire industrial infrastructure, with growing awareness of cyber security vulnerabilities. And that surely contributed to the passage of NERC CIP two years ago, the standards for which went into full effect earlier this year.

As the already-highly-regulated utility industry began to better understand, accept and adapt to these new security standards, the logical question emerged: Will NERC CIP be effective enough and does it go far enough?

more...
Article Viewed 2181 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

NERC / CIP Cyber Security: Leveraging Existing Controls to Secure the Enterprise

By Kevin McDonald, Senior Cyber Security Analyst, ICF Cybersecurity Solutions, February, 28, 2008 - On January 17, 2008, FERC approved the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Cyber Security Standards. In a 200+-page ruling, FERC outlined the comments and responses to several key areas in the CIP standards. FERC’s primary point was that the standards are a good start, but they will need to evolve to more proscriptive controls. more...
Article Viewed 4662 Times | 2 Comments

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