IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - 49
A new frontier of insidious cyber risk has the potential
to redefine cybersecurity as we know it. The inconvenience,
expense, and embarrassment of the conventional compromise
of PII, personal health information, or payment card information is certainly a problem. However, compare a data breach
with the potential of the physical destruction of assets operated by your utility that provides the essential services for the
well-being of your customers. Imagine how daily life would
be impacted if these services were disrupted for long periods
of time or no longer existed. To date, most utilities and policy
makers have understandably focused on traditional cyber vulnerabilities, attacks on systems connected to the internal utility
company information technology (IT) networks. For a period
of time, this approach was sufficient since attacks on these
systems could affect customer data and normal back office
operations such as billing, which could impact a customer's
service connection, credit rating, or exposure to
identity theft. Meanwhile, the implications of
cyberattacks on the utility operational control
systems that monitor and manage power flow
represent an even greater risk of damage and
are increasingly (and we believe appropriately)
gaining the attention of experts in the ICS and
cybersecurity space.
To understand cyberincidents of a potentially catastrophic nature, it is necessary to
expand the perception of cybersecurity beyond
Internet-connected devices and servers. The
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published "Federal Information
Processing Standards Publication 200," defining a cyberincident as "an occurrence that
actually or potentially jeopardizes the Confidentiality, Integrity, or Availability [CIA] of
an information system or the information the
system processes, stores, or transmits or that
constitutes a violation or imminent threat of
violation of security policies, security procedures, or acceptable use policies." While this
is a fair foundation for data concerns, the risk
and scope need to be extended to safety risks
associated with the control systems that operate within the infrastructure providing vital
services to the public, such as electricity.
The electric utility industry has become
more automated and connected to the Internet through smart grid and other industrial
Internet initiatives, making power production, transmission, and distribution significantly more operationally dynamic than ever
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followed by grim figures suggesting yet another large
customer breach. Within days of the incident, the company's response suggests how they lost their customers' trust
and how they will safeguard personally identifiable information (PII) better in the future. The stock price plummets,
executives exit, and operations are triaged as the damage tally
continues to grow. The attacker's motivation is often financial reward or "hacktivism" prestige. The public impact is loss
of privacy and possibly identity theft of affected customers.
For the company, impact includes temporary (or long-term)
loss of customers, reputation, and market value and costs for
notification, credit monitoring, forensics, legal, and crisis
management services (to help regain lost reputation). No CEO
or board wants to learn that they have been cyber breached.
While many of these publicly known events have resulted in
large financial impacts and compromise of personal identity,
when it comes to electric utilities, there is an even greater risk
of business and customer impact if there is a cyber breach. In
light of this growing and persistent challenge, utilities should
rethink their cybersecurity programs now.
september/october 2016
ieee power & energy magazine
49
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - Cover1
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - Cover2
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - 1
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - 2
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - 4
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - 91
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - Cover3
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2016 - Cover4
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