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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
Critical infrastructures are complex physical and cyber-based systems that form the lifeline of modern society, and their reliable, secure, and safe operations are of paramount importance to national security and economic vitality. The electric power grid, one of the key critical infrastructures, is a highly automated network that uses a variety of sensors, information/control systems, and communication networks (collectively known as SCADA, EMS, WAMS, DMS) for the purpose of sensing, monitoring, and controlling the physical grid. The recent findings, as documented in federal reports and in the literature, indicate the growing threat of cyber-based attacks in numbers and sophistication on the nation's electric grid and other critical infrastructure systems. Therefore, cyber security of the power grid-encompassing attack prevention, detection, mitigation, and resilience-is among the most important research issues today and in the emerging smart grid. This talk will provide a brief taxonomy of potential cyber attacks on the power grid, and present a cyber-physical systems framework for risk modeling and mitigation of cyber attacks on the power grid that accounts for dynamics of the physical system, as well as the operational aspects of the cyber-based control system. In particular, the talk will focus on risk modeling of intrusion-based attacks on the substation automation system and data integrity attacks on the wide-area control network. The core of the modeling lies in the integration of cyber attack/defense modeling with physical system simulation capabilities, which makes it possible to quantify the potential consequences of a cyber attack on the power grid in terms of load loss, stability violations, equipment damage, or economic loss. Finally, the talk will conclude with discussing the experience in building a SCADA cyber security testbed and its operational capabilities.
Host: Misha Chertkov, chertkov@lanl.gov, 665-8119