NSERC/Hydro-Québec/Thales Industrial Research Chair in Smart Grid Security: Detection, Prevention, Mitigation and Recovery from Cyber-Physical Attacks

目前的电网被认为是二十世纪最好的工程成就之一。它的设计初衷是向各个消费领域输送电力。在很大程度上，它成功地未能实现这一目标。尽管如此，电网在过去几年里经历了几次停电。特别是，在过去的40年里，有五次大停电，其中三次发生在过去的九年里。通过增加可再生能源的利用来确保电力安全、实现能源效率并为环境保护做出贡献的愿望正在推动部署智能电网的需求。据预测，这些智能电网将允许双向电力流动，以及管理发电和不断增长的能源需求的新方法。智能电网的成功部署取决于保障其安全性的能力。这一要求至关重要，因为电网对关键基础设施的几个组成部分至关重要。最近的网络安全事件和安全研究表明，电网可能受到破坏性攻击，可能导致严重的安全和经济后果，甚至危及和丧失生命。此外，信息和通信技术的日益一体化肯定会增加网络攻击面。利用这些漏洞可能会导致攻击，例如，扭曲状态信息，改变在输电线路上定位事件或故障的能力，将电网置于更大风险的运行点。这将导致经济损失、连锁故障造成的系统损失、大停电等不良和严重的后果。本研究的主要目的是探讨智能电网域、组件、设备和协议的安全性，以：(1)得出安全需求；(2)识别攻击面及其潜在的脆弱性、威胁及其网络物理后果；(3)提出实用有效的检测、预防、缓解和恢复技术和方法，肯定会加强和增强整体智能电网的安全性。

The current electric grid is considered as one of the best engineering achievements of the twentieth century. Itwas designed to deliver power to various consumer domains. To a large extent, it has been successful infulfilling this objective. Nevertheless, the electric grid has experienced several blackouts over the past years. Inparticular, there have been five major blackouts over the past forty years, three of which have occurred in thepast nine years alone. The aspiration to secure power, to achieve energy efficiency and to contribute toenvironment protection through the increasing utilization of renewable energies are driving the need to deploysmart grids. It is predicated that these smart grids will allow for bidirectional power flow as well as new waysto manage both power generation and the increasing energy demand. The successful deployment of smart gridsis predicated on the ability to guarantee their security. Such a requirement is of paramount importance sinceelectrical grids are essential to several components of the critical infrastructure. Recent cyber security incidentsand security research studies demonstrate that electrical grids could be subjected to disrupting attacks thatmight lead to severe security and economic consequences, and even to the endangerment and loss of humanlives. Furthermore, the increasing integration of ICT technologies will definitely augment cyber attacksurfaces. The exploitation of these vulnerabilities might lead to attacks that will, for instance, skew the stateinformation, alter the abilities to locate events or faults on transmission lines, place the grid at operating pointsthat are at greater risk from contingencies. This will lead to undesirable and severe consequences such asfinancial losses, systemic losses from cascading failures, major blackouts, etc. The primary intent of thisresearch is to explore the security of smart grid domains, components, devices and protocols to: (1) elicit thesecurity requirements; (2) identify the attack surfaces together with the underlying vulnerabilities, threats andtheir cyber physical consequences; (3) propose practical and efficient detection, prevention, mitigation andrecovery techniques and methodologies that will definitely harden and enhance the overall smart grid security.