SECURITY IN THE SMART GRID R E B E C C A VA N DY K E MY - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

SECURITY IN THE SMART GRID

R E B E C C A VA N DY K E

MY BACKGROUND

• Masters student in ECE department with focus in

Communication Systems – BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science

• Completed two summer internships with Public

Service Electric & Gas, a major utility company in New Jersey – Summer 2016: Worked in protective relaying group automating grid protections – Summer 2017: Supported project management group in deployment of in-house MPLS communication network

G R I D O V E R V I E W

SCADA: SUPERVISORY CONTROL AND DATA ACQUISITION

THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY

• Utility systems are old

– Were not designed with the modern internet in mind

• Speed is key to utility operations, so more and more management is being handled by

computers

• Since 2003, inter-utility communication has improved

– Grid management more centralized

• Recent cyberattacks on critical infrastructure have raised alarms

– Potential threat to national security

“INDUSTROYER”

• In 2016, the capital of Ukraine was

deprived of power following a cyberattack

• Attack is credited to a piece of

software dubbed “Industroyer”

• Capable of using multiple industrial

control protocols

• IC protocols typically assume trust, no

handshaking

• Modular and adaptable

SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS OF SMART GRID

• Reliability
• Compatibility with legacy systems
• Low overhead/latency
• Low cost
• Widely distributed

ACADEMIC RESEARCH ON SMARTGRIDS

• Describes methodology for cloud based

SCADA metering data only

• Neglects key industry concerns about

security

Security- Oriented Cloud Platform for SOA-Based SCADA

• Evaluates a recently released secure

authentication extension of a standard industrial control protocol

• Rules for determining object payload length

are complicated, which increases attack surface due to potential programmer error

• Authors favor a simpler, more layered

approach

Bolt-On Security Extensions for Industrial Control System Protocols: A Case Study of DNP3 SAv5

ACADEMIC RESEARCH (CONT’D)

Efficient Secure Group Communications for SCADA

• Compares performance of a variety of key-

management systems designed for SCADA

• Support for broadcasting and multicasting;
• Minimize number of keys to be stored in an

RTU

• Need for a key update mechanism.

Cyber-physical attacks and defences in the smart grid: a survey

• Addresses the relationship between cyber and

physical vulnerabilities

• Key junctions

THE COLLABORATION: SSP-21

• Automatak consultancy is being funded by a

consortium of California utilities to develop a new standard for secure SCADA communication

• Protocol agnostic “bump in the wire”/”bump in

the stack”

• Trust based on public key infrastructure managed

by asset owner

• Strongly emphasizes simplicity
• All messages authenticated, encryption optional
• Cryptographic layer based on simplified

implementation of Noise

Request Handshake Begin   Reply Handshake Begin Session Data with n==0   Session Data with n==0

CONCLUSIONS

• Many possibilities for securing grid communications exist, but threats

remain until consensus is achieved

– Interconnectedness and redundancy in power grid – More cooperation between providers improves reliability, but threatens security

• Main obstacles to a secure smart grid are legislative and economic

– Political forces effectively discourage utilities from communicating about cyber threats

• The most successful research efforts recognize how infrastructure

systems differ from typical cybersecurity applications

REFERENCES

1. Cherepanov, A. and Lipovsky, R. (2017). Industroyer: Biggest threat to industrial control systems since Stuxnet. [online]

• WeLiveSecurity. Available at: https://www.welivesecurity.com/2017/06/12/industroyer-biggest-threat-industrial-

control-systems-since-stuxnet/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2017]. 2. Choi, D., Lee, S., Won, D. and Kim, S. (2010). Efficient Secure Group Communications for SCADA. IEEE Transactions

• n Power Delivery, 25(2), pp.714-722.

3. Crain, J. and Bratus, S. (2015). Bolt-On Security Extensions for Industrial Control System Protocols: A Case Study

• f DNP3 SAv5. IEEE Security & Privacy, 13(3), pp.74-79.

4. He, H. and Yan, J. (2016). Cyber-physical attacks and defences in the smart grid: a survey. IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory & Applications, 1(1), pp.13-27. 5. Mackay, M., Baker, T. and Al-Yasiri, A. (2012). Security-oriented cloud computing platform for critical

• infrastructures. Computer Law & Security Review, 28(6), pp.679-686.

6. SSP-21 Specification (GitHub link provided upon request)