Smart Grid Security: An End-to-End View of Security in the New Electrical Grid

The Smart Grid has the potential to revolutionize electricity delivery systems, and the security of its infrastructure is a vital concern not only for cyber-security practitioners, engineers, policy makers, and utility executives, but also for the media and consumers. Smart Grid Security: An End-to-End View of Security in the New Electrical Grid explores the important techniques, challenges, and forces that will shape how we achieve a secure twenty-first century electric grid.

Includes a Foreword by Michael Assante, President and CEO, National Board of Information Security Examiners

Following an overview of the components of the Smart Grid, the book delves into the evolution of security standards and regulations and examines ways in which the Smart Grid might be regulated. The authors discuss the technical details about how metering technology is being implemented and the likely threats and vulnerabilities that utilities will face. They address the home area network (HAN) and examine distribution and transmission—the foundation for the delivery of electricity, along with distributed generation, micro-grids, and operations.

The book explores future concepts—such as energy storage and the use of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs)—in addition to the concomitant risk for fraud and manipulation with stored energy. Consumer-related issues are discussed as they pertain to emerging ways of receiving and generating energy. The book examines dysfunctions ranging from inadvertent outages to cyber-attack and presents recommendations on how to respond to these incidents. It concludes with speculation of future cyber-security challenges and discusses new ways that the grid can be defended, such as better key management and protection.

Written in a style rigorous enough for the practitioner yet accessible to a broad audience, this comprehensive volume covers a topic that is becoming more critical to industry and consumers everywhere.

Gilbert (Gib) N. Sorebo is a chief cybersecurity Technologist and assistant vice president for SAIC where he assists government and private sector organizations in addressing cybersecurity risks and complying with legal and regulatory requirements. He has been working in the information technology industry for more than nineteen years in both the public and private sector. In addition to federal and state governments, Mr. Sorebo has done security consulting in the financial services, health care, and electricity sectors. He is currently responsible for coordinating cybersecurity activities in the energy sector companywide. He has been the co-lead of SAI C’s Smart Grid Security practice where he established the SAI C Smart Grid Security Solutions Center for product security testing and solution development and contributes to a variety of other smart grid security research efforts.

Michael C. Echols is a cyber security consultant who specializes in the development and management of utilities’ cyber security programs. This includes the development of governance models, policy development, and compliance. Michael has worked in Energy and Utility markets developing and delivering transformational cyber security solutions for Critical Infrastructure systems. Michael is recognized for his expertise in cyber security compliance and posture analysis for industrial control systems and smart grid technologies. He has worked in the public sector as a cyber security officer for the U.S. government, where he has applied security requirements from both NIST and NERC to industrial control systems, in real world situations. He has led efforts to assess, secure and remediate risk to Generation, Transmission, Distribution, and Advanced Residential Metering Systems for the U.S. government and major U.S. energy providers.