Security of the Smart Grid

By Dave Dalva, Business Development Manager, Cisco Smart Grid

The smart grid promises a more efficient way of supplying and consuming energy. In essence, the smart grid is a data communications network integrated with the power grid that collects and analyzes data about power transmission, distribution and consumption—all in near-real-time. Based on this data, smart grid technology then provides predictive information and recommendations to utilities, their suppliers, and their customers on how best to manage power.

This increased connectivity also presents challenges, especially in security. The unfortunate reality is that because of the critical nature of the technology and the services it provides, the grid becomes a prime target for acts of terrorism and vandalism. Therefore, the transformation of traditional energy networks to smart grids requires an intrinsic security strategy to safeguard this critical infrastructure.

A sound security strategy must include designs to secure the infrastructure both proactively, and offer resilience in the event of a security breach.

Unique Security Challenges

The smart grid is unique in several ways that present significant cyber security challenges:

Scale - The communications infrastructure necessary to support the global power grid has the potential to be larger than the Internet. As we learned from the Internet experience, securing such a large network presents challenges such as segmentation, identity management for a large number of entities, the management of keys for data integrity and confidentiality, as well as integrating multiple wired and wireless communications mechanisms.

Legacy Devices - Unlike corporate IT systems that typically have a life span of 3-5 years, many devices in the smart grid have service lives measured in decades. Any attempt to design security for the smart grid must enable integration of legacy systems, many of which have only basic, if any, communications capabilities, and provide a long-term migration strategy to smarter devices.

Field Locations - Most grid devices are publicly accessible. While physical security of these field devices is an important design consideration, the fact that they are potentially accessible to adversaries requires that network security design not rely on them for grid integrity.

Evolving Standards & Regulations - Most early efforts are proprietary and suffer from a lack of independent testing. As the smart grid standards landscape matures, through efforts by NIST and others, we will see a gradual transition to a common set of security standards and testing.

How to Approach Grid Security

The foundations of Cisco's vision for smart grid security are principles learned from years as the leader in building secure data networks:

• Maximize visibility into the network environment, devices and events
• Control network users, devices, and traffic 

As we look to secure the elements that comprise the grid, specific security considerations must be taken into account.

The Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) contains the devices and processes that extend energy management to residences and businesses. Key security requirements include fraud prevention, to protect both the utility and the consumer; grid integrity, to protect the "upstream" network from unauthorized commands, access to the network, and denial of service attacks; and customer privacy.

Substation and distribution network security must incorporate several key requirements. Among these is availability, including user and device authentication and authorization, protection from denial of service; data integrity, including the integrity of telemetry data and SCADA commands; audit, including information that may be used for real-time grid management and regulatory compliance; and confidentiality, to protect energy and market data that could be used to compromise the power grid.

Establishing a Security Process

As utilities look to take advantage of the smart grid opportunity, it is imperative that they establish a governance and risk-based assessment process that can help manage the security lifecycle:

1.        Establish corporate governance over security to oversee lifecycle activities

2.        Establish a cross-functional (IT, T&D, corporate security, customer service) smart grid cyber security program team to develop and execute on a corporate compliance plan  

3.        Perform a risk-based threat assessment of all smart grid systems, from generation to distribution

4.        Define appropriate remediation (people, process, technology) to address the assessment gaps

5.        Develop a security architecture leveraging industry reference architectures for a holistic solution

6.        Adapt security requirements into technology procurements to build security in

7.        Establish/adapt security testing protocols across all smart grid technologies

8.        Establish/extend a cross-functional Cyber Network Operations Center to manage the operations of converged energy & information and communication technology grid assets

9.        Engage in standards development, industry information exchanges and best practice sharing

Navigating the Evolving Regulatory Landscape

In North America, the NERC^[1] Critical Infrastructure Protection standards are undergoing a major update - version 4 - that will improve coverage and effectiveness of these security regulations for Bulk Electric Systems. Utilities will now have to classify the criticality of all assets, and a comprehensive set of security requirements will apply to these assets based on their classification. Beyond CIP v4, it is expected that state and federal regulators will adopt portions of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel^[2] - Cyber Security Working Group's Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security 1.0, to be published in the July/Aug 2010 time frame, and which applies to the entire grid.

Conclusion

Utilities that establish a comprehensive security process will be best prepared to securely implement innovative smart grid functionality, such as substation automation, distribution automation, and automated metering. As standards and regulations evolve, these utilities will be better able to accommodate these changes into their environments, and be best positioned to deploy technology solutions that will endure for the life of the project.

[1] www.nerc.com

[2] www.nist.gov/smartgrid