90
FEATURE
ANDREAS KLIEN
MONITORING
cyber security I
n days gone by, activists flattened pylons to forcibly isolate smaller areas from the energy grid. Nowadays it’s hackers - whose motives range from political to purely financial - who are attempting to use digital means to remotely access our critical infrastructure.
The protection engineering and SCADA technology, or the Station Automation System (SAS), belong to the critical infrastructure of utilities. They make an essential contribution to maintaining the energy supply. These infrastructures must therefore be protected against unauthorised access or illogical switching actions that cause disruptions to the energy supply or destruction of equipment.
StationGuard Andreas Klien, the Product Manager responsible for cyber security products at OMICRON, explains the challenges facing substation operators today. “To get a better handle on this, we look at the possible attack vectors that might be utilised against the station control and protection technology. How could a hacker or malware get into the substation? Where is the path of least resistance as far as a potential hacker is concerned? What would make their job as easy as possible? This is the first thing an operator has to consider.” StationGuard, OMICRON’s IDS (Intrusion Detection System), protects these critical infrastructures against almost all conceivable cyber attacks or unauthorised actions. It contains the accumulated know-how from many decades of worldwide engineering work in switchgear, as well as research on IEC 61850 network analysis.
There are multiple attack vectors to a typical substation, each marked with a number. Rail Engineer | Issue 189 | Mar-Apr 2021
