Critical infrastructure comprises all the assets that are vital for the smooth functioning of a society. They include infrastructures such as energy, communications, healthcare, transportation and others. These critical infrastructures are coupled in various ways, and, therefore highly interdependent.
The 22nd Days of Energy Conference took place on 23rd and 24th November 2020 as an online conference and was organized by Slovenian media company Finance (https://dnevi-energetikov.si/). Days of Energy is a central event for energy managers and experts from Slovenian companies, research institutions and all those who operate on the principle of efficient energy use.
In October 2020, BTC Company, as a sponsor, financially and substantively supported the implementation of the Conference 24/7/365 (https://www.gzs.si/Dogodki/2-10-2020/konferenca-247365) and the CyberNight event (https://cybernight.org), organized by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia and Digital Innovation Hub of Slovenia.
How could cyber incident response teams and cyber security professionals be trained and prepared to protect the forthcoming smart grid from cyber threats? A smart grid cyber range (SGCR) can be tailored for this purpose by utilizing virtualization and simulation to imitate or mimic abnormal features commonly found by DSOs and TSOs, as well as simulating cyberattacks observed in the real world.
The H2020 project DEFENDER (Grant n° 740898) has reached its final review September 18th. Being part of the H2020-CIP-2016-2017, the project focuses on the use of innovative technologies to handle cyber-physical attacks on critical energy infrastructures. It involves 18 partners, including several partners from the PHOENIX consortium (RWTH, SingularLogic, ASM Terni, BFP, Elektro-Ljubljana and Thales). DEFENDER has developed tools that will be used as inspirations in the project PHOENIX, including the cosimulator, the CEI Incidents Information Sharing Platform, the Incident Detection Framework and the Incident Mitigation Framework.
The Phoenix LSP2 is currently being organised by PPC S.A. Greece. Hydroelectric Power Plants (HPP’s) participating in LSP2 communicate via optical fibres. We review briefly the possibility of eavesdropping on optical fibres, a process known as fibre tapping. Moreover we report on some recent advances on MCDA algorithms which are a key ingredient in Phoenix.
The COVID-19 experience which could potentially compromise the continuity of the ordinary EPES operation in the first months of 2020, has increased the awareness of people who must be able to carry out their ordinary, and not only, activities by remote, without loosing the efficiency requested for the management of strategical energy infrastructures.
Trust, but verify
Industrial automation and control systems (IACS) in the energy infrastructure (e.g. SCADA) are vulnerable to cyber security incidents. Digitalization, increased integration, and convergence of Information Technology and Operational Technology (IT & OT) are opening new avenues for cyber-attacks.
In cases where a cyberattack is performed on critical infrastructures, for instance Energy Infrastructures in the PHOENIX project, these attacks must be correctly and quickly handled to avoid disasters. In this setting Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) tools can help take good decision in a very short timeframe.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and Innovation programme under grant agreement N°832989. All information on this website reflects only the authors’ view. The Agency and the Commission are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information this website contains.
