Cybersecurity is of great concern for the power industry, as the impact of cyber threats on the reliability and stability of power grids can be severe. To address this challenge, the industry is increasingly turning to innovate cybersecurity solutions, such as real-time simulation, digital twin, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and control-power-hardware-in-the-loop (C-PHIL) testing, which are orchestrated as part of advanced sandboxing environments.
Sandboxing testing environments are a powerful approach for testing and validation of innovative cybersecurity solutions for electrical power and energy systems (EPES) such as those developed by the ELECTRON-project. They provide a secure and isolated environment, where the cybersecurity solutions can be tested and evaluated against various cyber-attack scenarios, without posing any risks to the physical power grid.
Real-time simulation, enabled by advanced technologies such as OPAL-RT[1], is a key component of sandboxing testing environments. It allows for the accurate modelling of power systems under realistic conditions and the assessment of a broad-range of cybersecurity solutions. Digital twin is another innovative technology that is gaining traction in the power industry. Digital twin creates a virtual replica of the physical power grid including its cyber-physical components and communication networks. HIL and C-PHIL testing involves integrating the real control hardware, such as protection relays and phasor measurement units (PMUs), into the simulation environment. This allows for the accurate modelling of the control system’s behaviour and its interaction with the power grid and communication networks and thus providing a more realistic assessment of the cybersecurity solutions[2].
In addition to the use of OPAL-RT, digital twin, and HIL testing, tools such as Ettercap[3] and Wireshark[4] can be employed to perform various types of man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks in order to assess the effectiveness of several ELECTRON cybersecurity solutions for a suite of EPES applications. Ettercap is a powerful MITM tool that can be used to intercept, modify, and drop off network traffic, while Wireshark is a widely used network protocol analyser that can be used to capture and inspect the network packets. Besides Ettercap and Wireshark, there are several other popular tools that can be used to test and evaluate the cybersecurity of power grids. These tools, when used in combination with OPAL-RT, digital twin, and HIL testing, can provide a comprehensive and powerful approach for testing and validation of innovative cybersecurity solutions for power grids, and thus contributing to improved cybersecurity and resilience of critical infrastructures such as EPES.
In conclusion, creation of advanced sandboxing testbeds for testing and validation of innovative cybersecurity solutions of ELECTRON, making use of real-time simulation, digital twin, and HIL testing, is a promising approach for addressing the cybersecurity challenges of EPES. As the power industry continues to evolve and face new cyber threats, the adoption of innovative cybersecurity solutions will be a key factor in ensuring the reliability and stability of power grids.
[1] https://www.opal-rt.com/cybersecurity-overview/
[2] M. F. Elrawy, E. Tekki, L. Hadjidemetriou, C. Laoudias and M. K. Michael, “Protection and Communication Model of Intelligent Electronic Devices to Investigate Security Threats,” 2023 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT), Washington, DC, USA, 2023, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/ISGT51731.2023.10066371.