Effects of intentional threats to power substation control systems

Abstract

Power station control and management systems represent key elements for guaranteeing the security of the power grid infrastructure. Intrinsically conceived to support the continuous provision of power in secure conditions, those systems today make intensive use of information and communication systems and are therefore exposed to related accidental and intentional cyber threats. This paper describes a simulation of cyber attacks conducted in the CESI RICERCA laboratory testbed on a prototypical substation control infrastructure with the purpose of testing their feasibility and illustrating their impact on the control system services. A set of attack scenarios targeting several subsystems has been experimented, with different simulated threat motivations and different degrees of impact on the global substation service. The paper reports some considerations about the consequences of the implemented attacks, focusing on different facets of the problem, in an effort to elucidate the full significance of the potential cyber threats.

A model of distributed key generation for industrial control systems

“…Several studies ( Dondossola et al (2008);Carcano et al (2010) ) proved that modern industrial critical infrastructure are, on average, exposed to the traditional computer attacks and threats. Such an exposure is mainly due to the intrinsic weakness of the communication protocols used in SCADA systems to monitor and control the field devices.…”

Data Security Transmission Mechanism in Industrial Networked Control Systems against Deception Attack

“…1 Once they are attacked, it will cause serious social economic losses. Nowadays, with the increasing complexes of connections, INCSs have been developed from a closed system into a more open network environment [1] , and they are very vulnerable to cyber attacks for the widely used communication protocols (such as Modbus and DNP3) without security control [2], [3] . This paper aims at proposing a security mechanism to compensate for the protocol vulnerabilities and protect the data transmitted in INCSs.…”

Digital Watermark based Authentication for Intrusion Detection of Digital Substations

“…Unlike traditional substation automation system (SAS) where Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) are hardwired linked to implement data acquisition and carry out their function, development of electronic instrument transformers (EITs) and prevalence of communication and information technology have led to a revolution in SAS using IEC 61850 protocol. Impact of potential attack scenarios and its countermeasures are evaluated in [4]. Since tripping signal and outputs of EITs (current and voltage measurements) are transmitted as numerical signals via broadband communication network in IEC61850 automated substations [2][3][4], the risk emerges in a form that a fake tripping signal or measurements accepted by protection system could lead to mis-operation.…”

“…Impact of potential attack scenarios and its countermeasures are evaluated in [4]. Since tripping signal and outputs of EITs (current and voltage measurements) are transmitted as numerical signals via broadband communication network in IEC61850 automated substations [2][3][4], the risk emerges in a form that a fake tripping signal or measurements accepted by protection system could lead to mis-operation.…”