Develop a Cyber Physical Security Platform for Supporting Security Countermeasure for Digital Energy System (original) (raw)

Cyber-Physical Smart Grid Security Tool for Education and Training Purposes

2017

Cyber security education is now an essential piece of information to understand the current challenges in utilizing the technology in a secure manner. In this paper, we highlight the need of improving the human factors role and cyber security awareness in better securing the systems. We discuss a simulation tool called CPSA that can be used for education and training purposes to understand the impact of cyber-attacks on the physical power system, and overall system monitoring. The tool supports attacks modeling, different communication network topologies, simulation of bad data and malicious command received over the insecure network. This tool is helpful for students and researchers’ education to better understand the logics and prepare them with skills to evaluate the future cyber-physical system security. The tool can also be used for training purpose to the technical and non-technical staff at power utility.

Cyber-Physical Security Test Bed: A Platform for Enabling Collaborative Cyber Defense Methods

Energy cyber physical systems such as power systems are increasingly controlled by embedded microcontrollers that are connected to communication networks. Thus, modern power systems are increasingly under increased threat of cyber-attacks and tools are required to research the impact of these threats to the physical system. Cyber-attacks can be carried out in an electrical power system for the purpose of controlling switching devices or circuit breakers. Such attacks could weaken the power system or result in a power outage. A cyber physical security test bed is a necessary tool for conducting research in cyber physical security. It provides a platform by which attacks are simulated and evaluated on cyber physical systems. Methods to mitigate these threats can be validated in the same platform. This paper presents a hardware-in-the-loop based cyber-physical security test bed for substations. It consists of commercial equipment, and has capabilities to simulate the potential cyber threats and attacks, detect cyber intrusions, and could be used to validate cyber attack mitigation methods. A power system is modeled containing a detailed substation and simulated using Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS), which is connected to Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) and substation gateway to mimic power system protections and operations. Various types of cyber threats and intrusions are tested using this test bed to check the consequences and impacts of cyber attacks to power grids.

EPICTWIN: An Electric Power Digital Twin for Cyber Security Testing, Research and Education

ArXiv, 2021

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) rely on advanced communication and control technologies to efficiently manage devices and the flow of information in the system. However, a wide variety of potential security challenges has emerged due to the evolution of critical infrastructures (CI) from siloed sub-systems into connected and integrated networks. This is also the case for CI such as a smart grid. Smart grid security studies are carried out on physical test-beds to provide its users a platform to train and test cyber attacks, in a safe and controlled environment. However, it has limitations w.r.t modifying physical configuration and difficulty to scale. To overcome these shortcomings, we built a digital power twin for a physical test-bed that is used for cyber security studies on smart grids. On the developed twin, the users can deploy real world attacks and countermeasures, to test and study its effectiveness. The difference from the physical test-bed is that its users may easily modify...

Cybersecurity Study of Power System Utilizing Advanced CPS Simulation Tools

2019

The evolution of traditional electric grids toward “smarter” grids involves the deployment of novel wide-area and/or local communication infrastructure to facilitate new applications, such as advanced protection and control (P&C), Energy Management Systems (EMS), Microgrid Control Systems (MGCS), Wide-Area Protection, Monitoring and Control System (WAMPACS), and distributed control. These communicationbased applications, however, introduce new risks due to their increased dependency on communication infrastructure, which is susceptible to cyber threats [1]. In addition, the participation of prosumers (producers/consumers) at the distribution level may also expose the grid to cyber vulnerabilities. This is since prosumers will likely be interconnected to the main grid through a shared communication infrastructure, causing more potential cyber risk. Thus, it is important to study the grid along with its communication systems as a whole Cyber-Physical System (CPS) to evaluate potential...

Review of Design Elements within Power Infrastructure Cyber–Physical Test Beds as Threat Analysis Environments

Energies, 2021

Cyber–physical systems (CPSs) are an integral part of modern society; thus, enhancing these systems’ reliability and resilience is paramount. Cyber–physical testbeds (CPTs) are a safe way to test and explore the interplay between the cyber and physical domains and to cost-effectively enhance the reliability and resilience of CPSs. Here a review of CPT elements, broken down into physical components (simulators, emulators, and physical hardware), soft components (communication protocols, network timing protocols), and user interfaces (visualization-dashboard design considerations) is presented. Various methods used to validate CPS performance are reviewed and evaluated for potential applications in CPT performance validation. Last, initial simulated results for a CPT design, based on the IEEE 33 bus system, are presented, along with a brief discussion on how model-based testing and fault–injection-based testing (using scaling and ramp-type attacks) may be used to help validate CPT per...