Electric System Vulnerabilities: a State of the Art of Defense Technologies

Vulnerability of the European electrical infrastructure appears to be growing due to several factors: - demand is always growing, and, although this growth may be forecast, it cannot be anytime easily faced; - transactions increase, following electrical system liberalisation, and this involves operating the whole infrastructure closer to the system capacity and security limits; - an increased control systems complexity, required for secure system operation, may in turn raise system vulnerability, due both to accidental faults and malicious attacks; - critical infrastructures, and the electrical system primarily, are well known to be a privileged target in warfare, as well as terrorist attacks. In recent years, both Europe and America have experienced a significant number of huge blackouts, whose frequency and impact looks progressively growing. These events had common roots in the fact that current risk assessment methodologies and current system controls appear to be no longer adequate. Beyond the growing complexity of the electrical system as a whole, two main reasons can be listed: - system analysis procedures based on these methodologies did not identify security threats emerging from failures of critical physical components; - on-line controls were not able to avoid system collapse. This report provides a state-of-the-art of the technology on both regards: - as far as risk assessment methodologies are concerned, an overview of the conceptual power system reliability framework is provided, and the current N-1 principle for risk assessment in power systems is introduced, together with off-the-shelf enforcement methodologies, like optimal power flow. Emerging methodologies for dynamic security assessment are also discussed. The power system reliability approach is compared with the global approach to dependability introduced by computer scientists, and the conceptual clashes pointed out. Ways ahead to conciliate both views are outlined. - concerning power system controls, the report overviews the existing defense plans, making specific reference to the current Italian situation. The two major recent blackout events in the American North East and Italy are analysed, and the drawbacks of the existing arrangements and the installed control systems are discussed. Emerging technologies, such as phasor measurement units and wide area protection are introduced. Their likely impact on the existing control room is discussed. Finally, potential cyber vulnerabilities of the new control systems are introduced, the role of communication standards in that context is discussed, and an overview of the current state of the art is presented.JRC.G.6-Sensors, radar technologies and cybersecurit

Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection - Assessment Results Communication

Computer simulation of real systems is most of the time a complex task, both in terms of the analytical models describing the process and the usage of the tools that implement the models themselves. The results of such tools are also mainly professional oriented. However, depending on the addressee and the goal of the assessment, communicating the results in an ¿out-of-the-business¿ manner is sometimes required. This document introduces CEIPSec, a web based GIS centric application developed by IPSC SCNI for results communication and visual assessment of the impact of failures on the European electrical power transport system. CEIPSec was developed within the context of the Administrative Arrangement Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection between DG ENERGY and the JRC.JRC.DG.G.6-Security technology assessmen

Publish GIS Maps on the Web - The Implementation of ArcGIS Server

It is well known that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have come to be an indispensable tool for analyzing and managing spatial data. The synergies between GIS and Web technologies, the Web-based GIS, are also demonstrating their usefulness. With web services GIS, geospatial information is readily available to all who need it. Whether it be administrators, finance, researchers, or constituents. All authorized users can securely access necessary geospatial information and integrate it into their daily workflow. This greatly reduces fragmented and compartmentalized workflows and communication, and increase efficiencies. ArcGIS Server, a ESRI GIS software, is a complete and integrated server-based geographic information system (GIS) which is mainly used to share GIS resources across an organization and across the web. ArcGIS Server gives organizations the ability to centralize GIS software on application servers and deliver GIS capabilities to large numbers of users over networks. This report describes in detail all the procedures needed to install and to put into operation ArcGIS server at the ¿Sensors, Radar Technologies and Cyber-security¿ Unit of the Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizens. Finally, every component is working correctly and each qualified user has the possibility to create and to publish their GIS maps. ArcGIS Server is a fundamental instrument used also to develop the ECI GIS project (the GIS of the European Critical Infrastructures). The ECI GIS project will realize prototypes that could be used also in support of the Directive COM(2006) 787 on the identification and designation of European Critical Infrastructure and the assessment of the need to improve their protection, helping the Commission to organize the transmission procedures foreseen in the Directive in a rational and efficient manner, by using ArcGIS Server tools.JRC.G.6-Sensors, radar technologies and cybersecurit

Towards Standardisation Measures to Support the Security of Control and Real-Time Systems for Energy Critical Infrastructures

This report outlines the context for control and real time systems vulnerability in the energy sector, their role in energy critical infrastructures and their emerging vulnerabilities as they were put in light by some recent episodes. Then it provides a survey on the current efforts to set up reference frameworks addressing the broad issue of supervisory and control systems security. It discusses the role of standards and outlines the reference approaches in that respect. The current attitude of Europe towards the issue of control systems security is discussed and compared with the US situation, based on a stakeholder consultation, and gaps and challenges are outlined. A set of recommendations for policy measures to address the issue is given.JRC.DG.G.6-Security technology assessmen

Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection - Assessment Results Communication

Computer simulation of real systems is most of the time a complex task, both in terms of the analytical models describing the process and the usage of the tools that implement the models themselves. The results of such tools are also mainly professional oriented. However, depending on the addressee and the goal of the assessment, communicating the results in an ¿out-of-the-business¿ manner is sometimes required. This document introduces CEIPSec, a web based GIS centric application developed by IPSC SCNI for results communication and visual assessment of the impact of failures on the European electrical power transport system. CEIPSec was developed within the context of the Administrative Arrangement Critical Energy Infrastructure Protection between DG ENERGY and the JRC.JRC.G.6-Security technology assessmen

Understanding Malicious Attacks Against Infrastructures - Overview on the Assessment and Management of Threats and Attacks to Industrial Control Systems

This report describes approaches to the assessment and management of malicious threats and attacks relating to critical infrastructures in general, and electric power infrastructures in particular. Securing infrastructures implies taking into account both the natural and man-made (intentional) events. While protecting against the natural disruptive events is a feasible (yet not trivial) task, benefiting by well-established practices, dealing with intentional attacks comes up across many difficulties, especially due to the unpredictability of such events. The report outlines the state-of-the-art in dealing with threats and malicious attacks, considering both physical and cyber actions. Several approaches taken at national and international levels towards securing the critical infrastructures are also provided.JRC.G.6-Sensors, radar technologies and cybersecurit

Is Public Private Partnership a suitable way to cope with security issues?

This report investigates whether Public Private Partnership (PPP) is a suitable approach to tackle global security issues, with special reference to sensitive information sharing in the context of critical infrastructures protection. To this aim, it outlines the PPP concept starting from its introduction in the early nineties, and provides a critical view on the questions that arise in many application areas of PPP. An overview of the current EU guidelines concerning PPP is provided. Concerning security information sharing, early and current attempts to apply PPP are summarised, and the open issues involved highlighted.JRC.DG.G.6-Security technology assessmen

Privacy Preserving Data Mining, Evaluation Methodologies

Privacy is one of the most important properties an information system must satisfy. A relatively new trend shows that classical access control techniques are not sufficient to guarantee privacy when datamining techniques are used. Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM) algorithms have been recently introduced with the aim of modifying the database in such a way to prevent the discovery of sensible information. Due to the large amount of possible techniques that can be used to achieve this goal, it is necessary to provide some standard evaluation metrics to determine the best algorithms for a specific application or context. Currently, however, there is no common set of parameters that can be used for this purpose. Moreover, because sanitization modifies the data, an important issue, especially for critical data, is to preserve the quality of data. However, to the best of our knowledge, no approaches have been developed dealing with the issue of data quality in the context of PPDM algorithms. This report explores the problem of PPDM algorithm evaluation, starting from the key goal of preserving of data quality. To achieve such goal, we propose a formal definition of data quality specifically tailored for use in the context of PPDM algorithms, a set of evaluation parameters and an evaluation algorithm. Moreover, because of the "environment related" nature of data quality, a structure to represent constraints and information relevance related to data is presented. The resulting evaluation core process is then presented as a part of a more general three step evaluation framework, taking also into account other aspects of the algorithm evaluation such as efficiency, scalability and level of privacy.JRC.G.6-Sensors, radar technologies and cybersecurit

State of the Art in Privacy Preserving Data Mining

Privacy is one of the most important properties an information system must satisfy. A relatively new trend shows that classical access control techniques are not sufficient to guarantee privacy when Data Mining techniques are used. Such a trend, especially in the context of public databases, or in the context of sensible information related to critical infrastructures, represents, nowadays a not negligible thread. Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM) algorithms have been recently introduced with the aim of modifying the database in such a way to prevent the discovery of sensible information. This is a very complex task and there exist in the scientific literature some different approaches to the problem. In this work we present a "Survey" of the current PPDM methodologies which seem promising for the future.JRC.G.6-Sensors, radar technologies and cybersecurit

Privacy Preserving Data Mining, A Data Quality Approach

Privacy is one of the most important properties an information system must satisfy. A relatively new trend shows that classical access control techniques are not sufficient to guarantee privacy when datamining techniques are used. Privacy Preserving Data Mining (PPDM) algorithms have been recently introduced with the aim of sanitizing the database in such a way to prevent the discovery of sensible information (e.g. association rules). A drawback of such algorithms is that the introduced sanitization may disrupt the quality of data itself. In this report we introduce a new methodology and algorithms for performing useful PPDM operations, while preserving the data quality of the underlying database.JRC.G.6-Sensors, radar technologies and cybersecurit