Cyber Security and Critical Energy Infrastructure

Onyeji, Ijeoma; Bazilian, Morgan; Bronk, Chris

doi:10.1016/j.tej.2014.01.011

Cited by 64 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Furthermore, our increasing dependence on network infrastructures has attracted the attention of cyber criminals. These individuals aim to disrupt the operation of large corporations or even nations through cyber-attacks that are targeted at the communication infrastructure [27]. In this case, a failure is the result of deliberate malicious activities that can compromise a target network service.…”

Section: General Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience support in software-defined networking: A survey

et al. 2015

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Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an architecture for computer networking that provides a clear separation between network control functions and forwarding operations. The abstractions supported by this architecture are intended to simplify the implementation of several tasks that are critical to network operation, such as routing and network management. Computer networks have an increasingly important societal role, requiring them to be resilient to a range of challenges. Previously, research into network resilience has focused on the mitigation of several types of challenges, such as natural disasters and attacks. Capitalising on its benefits, including increased programmability and a clearer separation of concerns, significant attention has recently focused on the development of resilience mechanisms that use software-defined networking approaches. In this article, we present a survey that provides a structured overview of the resilience support that currently exists in this important area. We categorize the most recent research on this topic with respect to a number of resilience disciplines. Additionally, we discuss the lessons learned from this investigation, highlight the main challenges faced by SDNs moving forward, and outline the research trends in terms of solutions to mitigate these challenges . 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 This article presents a survey on the support for network resilience in SoftwareDefined Networking (SDN). This has been the subject of intense investigation by the academic and industrial community in the past few years, as evidenced by the number of papers included in our survey (159 references in total). Capitalizing on the benefits of SDN, including increased programmability and a clearer separation of concerns, significant attention has recently focused on the development of resilience mechanisms that use software-defined networking approaches. Thus, a wide range of solutions to classical network problems have been revisited using this architecture, but many problems continue to be challenging.Our survey investigates the resilience support that currently exists in this important area, and categorizes the most recent research on this topic with respect to a number of resilience disciplines. Additionally, we discuss the lessons learned from this investigation, highlight the main challenges faced by SDNs moving forward, and outline the research trends in terms of solutions to mitigate these challenges. The aim of the survey is to offer to the reader a structured view of network resilience in the SDN spectrum, and how resilience aspects are supported in these architectures.We believe that this subject material is closely aligned with the objectives of the journal. Please be assured that:1. This paper has not been published or accepted for publication w...

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Section: General Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience support in software-defined networking: A survey

et al. 2015

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“…Distributed generation is, therefore, less sensitive than a centralised system [48]. The increased use of computer systems to control energy systems can increase the systemic risk by permitting remote cyber-attacks on software by states or skilled non-state actors [49] (systemic risk is the risk of a system collapse, see [50]). …”

Section: Conversion and Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A resource curse for renewables? Conflict and cooperation in the renewable energy sector

Månsson

2015

Energy Research & Social Science

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a b s t r a c tPrevious studies have shown that fossil energy systems can be a conflict objective, means or cause. This study explores how renewable energy (RE) systems can interact with conflicts and to what extent the risk of different conflicts may change. Renewable resources, in contrast to conventional fossil resources, are more difficult to control in time and space. RE systems depend on exploiting flows rather than extracting stocks, are geographically more evenly distributed, and the energy density is lower. As a consequence, economic and geopolitical incentives for states to engage in conflicts to secure or control RE resources are low. However, increased competition for land increases the risk of local conflicts that involve non-state actors, since it can reduce actor's ecological space. Distribution and use of RE can be designed to have a low risk of interacting with conflicts, but the success of this depends on the technologies implemented and other sustainability policies. Increased dependence on control systems used to manage variable electricity production increase exposure to cyber threats while as small-scale distributed generation reduce incentives to attack the system since such systems are less sensitive to attacks.

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“…The reality of the aforementioned threats (Section I, Item 1-4) has emerged over the past several decades [1][2][3][4]. While SCADA systems were originally designed to be closed systems, the number of systems driving physical infrastructure connected to the Internet and interlinked with other systems is increasing each year [27]. From these limits derives the need to develop pertinent threat and risk modeling approaches.…”

Section: Cyber Vulnerabilities In Scada Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the impact of unavailability in cyber-physical environments

Aissa

Abercrombie

Sheldon

et al. 2014

2014 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Cyber Security (CICS)

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Abstract-The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system discussed in this work manages a distributed control network for the Tunisian Electric & Gas Utility. The network is dispersed over a large geographic area that monitors and controls the flow of electricity/gas from both remote and centralized locations. The availability of the SCADA system in this context is critical to ensuring the uninterrupted delivery of energy, including safety, security, continuity of operations and revenue. Such SCADA systems are the backbone of national critical cyber-physical infrastructures. Herein, we propose adapting the Mean Failure Cost (MFC) metric for quantifying the cost of unavailability. This new metric combines the classic availability formulation with MFC. The resulting metric, socalled Econometric Availability (EA), offers a computational basis to evaluate a system in terms of the gain/loss ($/hour of operation) that affects each stakeholder due to unavailability.

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Cyber Security and Critical Energy Infrastructure

Cited by 64 publications

References 10 publications

Resilience support in software-defined networking: A survey

Resilience support in software-defined networking: A survey

A resource curse for renewables? Conflict and cooperation in the renewable energy sector

Quantifying the impact of unavailability in cyber-physical environments

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