I-Corps: Cybersecurity Solution for Collecting, Storing, and Using Substation Relay Settings Data

I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为美国电力公用事业行业提供一种新的能力，(1)提高系统可靠性，(2)以新的方式连接网络和物理系统分析。电网的可靠、弹性和安全运行是一项至关重要的国家利益——支撑着经济活力、高生活水平和健康/福利。电网是有史以来最复杂的系统之一，极易受到极端天气、自然灾害、犯罪行为和敌对攻击的影响。它拥有大约3100家发电、输电和/或配电供应商，他们运营着7万多座高压变电站。每个变电站都有几十个继电器来打开和关闭断路器——控制电流。系统规划人员需要精确的、最新的继电器设置来填充计算机模拟，形成可靠的系统设计和操作。通常，系统保护人员维护特定于他们需要的中继设置数据库。系统规划人员经常发现这些数据库不适合他们的需要——为规划模拟提取/调整所需的数据子集是一项人工、耗时的繁重工作。系统操作员也有义务在收集、存储和使用期间保护中继设置数据，以防止犯罪分子或其他敌对行为者利用。I-Corps项目旨在为电力系统运营商提供一种新的能力，以简化/协调他们收集、存储、使用和保护系统研究/分析的继电器数据的工作。这种新功能还将使电力供应商能够将他们的物理系统模拟结果和网络地图联系起来，从而通过新的、以前无法实现的协同作用，为安全工作的优先次序打开大门。研究目标是双重的。首先，该项目寻求提供一个集成的端到端能力，支持自动中继设置数据收集、中央存储和自动定制数据提供给系统分析人员。物理产品将是一个独立的、专用的计算机系统，它包含多种基本功能：数据库、FTP服务器、web服务器、解析器和特定应用软件。其次，它将扩展功能，以利用最近引入的支持软件保护扩展（SGX）的cpu，该cpu为安全处理敏感数据提供加密内存空间。连接sgx功能cpu的专用计算机将为模拟电力系统行为的网络计算机系统提供新的安全级别。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to provide a new capability to the U.S. electric utility industry that (1) enhances system reliability and (2) enables linking cyber and physical system analyses in new ways. The power grid's reliable, resilient, and secure operation is a vital national interest - underpinning economic vitality, high living standards, and health/welfare. The power grid, one of the most complex systems ever built, is vulnerable to extreme weather, natural disasters, criminal acts, and hostile attacks. It has some 3,100 providers generating, transmitting, and/or distributing power, who operate more 70,000 high-voltage sub-stations. Each substation has tens of relays that open and close breakers - controlling power flows. System planning staffs require accurate, up-to-date relay settings to populate computer simulations that shape reliable system design and operation. Typically, system protection staffs maintain relay settings databases specific to their needs. System planning staffs often find these databases are ill-suited for their needs - extracting/adapting the needed data subsets for planning simulations is a manual, man-hour intense effort. The system operator is also obligated to protect relay settings data during collection, storage, and use to prevent exploitation by criminals or other hostile actors.This I-Corps project seeks to provide power system operators a new capability to streamline/harmonize their efforts to collect, store, use, and secure relay data for system studies/analysis. This new capability will also enable power providers to link their physical system simulation results and cyber network maps - opening the door to security effort prioritization with new, previously unachievable, synergy. The research objectives are two-fold. First, the project seeks to provide an integrated, end-to-end capability enabling automated relay settings data collection, central storage, and automated, tailored data provision to system analysts. The physical product will be a standalone, purpose-built computer system that incorporates multiple essential functions: database, FTP server, webserver, parser, and application-specific software. Second, it is envisioned to expand the capabilities to leverage recently introduced Software Guard Extension (SGX)-enabled CPUs, which provide encrypted memory space for securely processing sensitive data. The purpose-built computer linking SGX-enabled CPUs will provide a new level of security on networked computer systems simulating power system behaviors.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.