Power Grids Under Attack: Are TSOs Prepared for New Data & Cyber Threats?

The shift towards renewables, electrification and sector coupling is making it more difficult for Transmission System Operators (TSOs) globally to manage their power grids.¹ To address the new challenges in grid operations and planning, TSOs are increasingly digitizing, working with artificial intelligence (AI) and incorporating smaller energy systems into their optimization efforts.²

A good example of this is Germany's Redispatch 3.0 program. This program coordinates the output of distributed energy resources with energy consumer demand to prevent grid problems. Some TSOs are considering regional and national energy flexibility platforms. These platforms can create markets for new reserve products, helping to maintain grid stability.

Building on the concept of integrating smaller systems, virtual power plants (VPPs) are a promising variation. VPPs aggregate distributed energy resources and act as a single large power plant, offering a range of grid stabilization products through market-driven mechanisms.

Increased Vulnerability with Decentralization

There's a trade-off with integrating more decentralized energy assets and demand-side flexibility into the TSO calculus. While it offers flexibility and capacity, it also creates a much bigger target for cyberattacks via the OT/IT convergence required to operate.³ Traditional TSO security methods like physically isolating OT and IT systems (air-gapping) or their communication are no longer viable. They've also proven vulnerable and impractical to maintain in today's connected world.⁴

Additionally, the manipulation and tampering of data streams in the energy system can cause significant damage to equipment, and people, nullify any basic security infrastructure, and potentially inflict total supply blackouts. From a data security standpoint, blockchain technologies are a great first step helping to enhance the data security via immutability of the data once the data is on the blockchain. But they do not provide inherit protection against malicious data coming from internal and external data sources.

The Security Imperative

Security must be prioritized alongside technological advancements and market-driven initiatives. While innovation can improve protection, cybercriminals are constantly adapting. Robust security practices are required that can evolve alongside these threats.

TSOs are the backbone of our power grids. They oversee the high-voltage networks that carry electricity across vast regions, ensuring national (and sometimes international) energy security.  Given the critical nature of their role, shouldn't their future data and cybersecurity be equally robust?

Time to Fortify the Defenses

The emerging threat landscape demands a reevaluation of data security strategies. Malicious actors pose a real threat, and TSOs need the following:

1. modern end-to-end data trust models, and
2. cutting-edge security solutions to safeguard their complex physical and cloud infrastructure (e.g. XPN (Explicit Private Networking)⁵).

For enhanced security against malicious actors, TSOs need to integrate zero-trust principles into the design and development of their converged OT/IT data infrastructure and systems. Standardization in this area is currently being developed via the Trusted Energy Interoperability Alliance (TEIA)⁶, initiated by several energy majors.

Shifting Security Focus: Protecting Data Everywhere

Traditional security concentrates on safeguarding physical assets, computer systems, and digital communication channels. But what if we could secure the data itself, no matter where it originates or what infrastructure it travels across?

This new approach can be based on XPN leveraging zero-trust principles to facilitate affordable and effortless device-to-device, device-to-data repository/cloud, cloud-to-device communication, and remote data and device access. This enhances the security of on-premise data significantly and enables usage of relatively unsecured data from decentralized assets.

TSOs Upgrading Defenses

Driven by the evolution of the energy system, TSOs must implement robust end-to-end data and cyber security technologies to safeguard against attacks and ensure the integrity and reliability of the transmission network. This requires a common data trust model with security controls that are maintained all the time. TSOs must combine security technologies, hardening defense mechanisms and increasing the tamper resistance of critical systems.

---

¹ https://energy.mit.edu/research/future-electric-grid/

²https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2023/20230616_Sperrfrist.html

³ https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/power-and-utilities/cyber-risk-electric-power-sector.html

⁴https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Sector%20Spotlight%20Cyber-Physical%20Security%20Considerations%20Electricity%20Sub-Sector%20508%20compliant.pdf

⁵ https://www.intertrust.com/platform/xpn-faq/

⁶https://www.trusted-energy.org