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/ Journal Issues / Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition / The Efficacy and Challenges of SCADA and Smart Grid Integration

The Efficacy and Challenges of SCADA and Smart Grid Integration

Published in Journal of Cyber Security and Information Systems
Volume: 1 Number: 3 - Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition

Authors: Les Cardwell and Annie Shebanow
Posted: 02/10/2016 | Leave a Comment

The advent and evolution of the Smart Grid initiative to improve the electric utility power infrastructure has brought with it a number of opportunities for improving efficiencies, but along with those benefits come challenges in the effort to assure safety, security, and reliability for utilities and consumers alike. One of the considerations in designing the capabilities of the Smart Grid is the integration of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to allow the utility to remotely monitor and control network devices as a means of achieving reliability and demand efficiencies for the utility as a whole. Given the ability of these systems to control the flow of electricity throughout the network, additional planning and forethought is required to ensure all possible measures for preventing compromise are considered. This work discusses the overall architecture(s) used today and some of the measures currently implemented to secure those architectures as they evolve. More importantly, it considers simplifying the complexity of implementing the many standards put forth by applicable standards and regulatory bodies as a means to achieve realistic governance.

Introduction

Utility infrastructures represent privileged targets for cyber terrorists or foreign state-sponsored hackers. There are a number of challenges to achieve a base-level security across the utility spectrum. The challenges are due to limited budgets, privately owned control systems in utility infrastructures, and the complexity in decomposing the myriad sets of requirements from competing regulatory bodies each with their own frameworks. The process of developing a functional, secure infrastructure requires technology skills and understanding how and why all applied technologies interact with each other.

In this section, the SCADA and smart grid are explained to discuss the efficacy and challenges in the integration process.

SCADA

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are basically Process Control Systems (PCS) that are used for monitoring, gathering, and analyzing real-time environmental data from a simple office building or a complex nuclear power plant. PCSs are designed to automate electronic systems based on a predetermined set of conditions, such as traffic control or power grid management. Some PCSs consist of one or more remote terminal units (RTUs) and/or Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) connected to any number of actuators and sensors, which relay data to a master data collective device for analysis. Gervasi (2010) described SCADA systems with the following components:

  1. Operating equipment: pumps, valves, conveyors, and substation breakers that can be controlled by energizing actuators or relays.
  2. Local processors: communicate with the site’s instruments and operating equipment. This includes the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), Remote Terminal Unit (RTU), Intelligent Electronic Device (IED), and Process Automation Controller (PAC). A single local processor may be responsible for dozens of inputs from instruments and outputs to operating equipment.
  3. Instruments: in the field or in a facility that sense conditions such as pH, temperature, pressure, power level, and flow rate.
  4. Short-range communications: between local processors, instruments, and operating equipment. These relatively short cables or wireless connections carry analog and discrete signals using electrical characteristics such as voltage and current, or using other established industrial communications protocols.
  5. Long-range communications: between local processors and host computers. This communication typically covers miles using methods such as leased phone lines, satellite, microwave, frame relay, and cellular packet data.
  6. Host computers: act as the central point of monitoring and control. The host computer is where a human operator can supervise the process, as well as receive alarms, review data, and exercise control.

Figure 1 displays a high-level overview of SCADA architecture, where the Remote Stations might be an Electric Substation, the SCADA network on one network segment, with other organization network on differing network segments. With advancements in the computing field, the integration of digital electronics devices play an important role in the manufacturing industry, wherein manufacturing plants utilize PLCs/RTUs to control the devices, and develop distributed and large complicated systems in which intelligent systems are part of the manufacturing control systems processes.

SCADASmartGridEfficacy_Page_2_Image_0002

Figure 1: SCADA Network (Source: www.buraq.com)

“Most often, a SCADA system will monitor and make slight changes to function optimally; SCADA systems are considered closed loop systems and run with relatively little human intervention. One of the key processes of SCADA is the ability to monitor an entire system in real time. This is facilitated by data acquisitions including meter reading, checking statuses of sensors, etc. that are communicated at regular intervals depending on the system” (Abawajy & Robles, 2010).

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References

Abawajy, J., & Robles, R. J. (2010). Secured Communication Scheme for SCADA in Smart Grid Environment. Journal of Security Engineering, 7(6), 12.

Balijepalli, V. S. K. M., Khaparde, S., Gupta, R., & Pradeep, Y. (2010). SmartGrid initiatives and power market in India.

Cardwell, L. (2013, February 28). Comments received in response to: Federal register notice developing a framework to improve critical infrastructure cybersecurity. Retrieved on April 10 fromhttp://csrc.nist.gov/cyberframework/rfi_comments/central_lincoln_pud_022...

Chauvenet, C., Tourancheau, B., Genon-Catalot, D., Goudet, P. E., & Pouillot, M. (2010). A communication stack over PLC for multi physical layer IPv6 Networking.

Clark, A., & Pavlovski, C. J. (2010). Wireless Networks for the Smart Energy Grid: Application Aware Networks. Proceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists, 2.

CMMI Institute. (2010, November). Capability maturity model integration. Retrieved from http://cmmiinstitute.com/

Collier, S. E. (2010). Ten steps to a smarter grid. Industry Applications Magazine, IEEE, 16(2), 62-68.

DHS. (2011, January 24). Cyber security evaluation tool. Retrieved from http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/satool.html

DHS. (2012, May 31). Electricity subsector cybersecurity capability maturity model. Retrieved fromhttp://energy.gov/oe/services/cybersecurity/electricity-subsector-cybers...

Fries, S., Hof, H. J., & Seewald, M. (2010). Enhancing IEC 62351 to Improve Security for Energy Automation in Smart Grid Environments.

Gervasi, O. (2010). Encryption scheme for secured Communication of web based control systems. Journal of Security Engineering, 7(6), 12.

Hentea, M. (2008). Improving security for SCADA control systems. Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, 3, 73-86.

Jha, R. K., Kumar, R. A., & Dalal, U. D. Performance Comparison of Intelligent Jamming in RF (Physical) Layer with WLAN Ethernet Router and WLAN Ethernet Bridge. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Advances in Communication, Network, and Computing.

Langner, R., & Pederson, P. (2013). Bound to fail: Why cyber security risk cannot simply be “managed” away. Retrieved on April 10 from http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/02/12/executive-order-im...

NIST. (2013, February 12). Cybersecurity framework. Retrieved from http://www.nist.gov/itl/cyberframework.cfm

Teixeira, A., Dán, G., Sandberg, H., & Johansson, K. H. (2010). A cyber security study of a SCADA energy management system: Stealthy deception attacks on the state estimator. Arxiv preprint arXiv:1011.1828.

Authors

Les Cardwell
Les Cardwell
Dr. Les Cardwell is an Enterprise Data Architect at Central Lincoln People’s Utility District on the Oregon Coast, one of the a recipients of the ARRA Smart Grid Grants. He received his doctorate (DCS-DSS) from Colorado Technical University, and received both a MIT and BIT from American InterContinental University. Les is a subject matter expert (SME) for the DOE’s Electric Subsector Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (ES-C2M2), is a Certified Enterprise Architect (EACOE), and an evangelist for solving the Cybersecurity challenges through an Enterprise Architecture perspective. His experience spans 30 years improving ICT efficiencies, with a passion for reducing complexity to its simplest form.
Annie Shebanow
Annie Shebanow
Annie Shebanow has a Doctorate degree in Computer Science and currently teaching at Brandeis University. She has over 20 years of software engineering and business leadership experience working for Apple, IBM, Cisco Systems, and several other companies. She has founded five Internet companies in the past, and currently, she is working on her next venture building a Cloud platform with teams in Colorado and Africa.

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