Cyber Security and Resilience of Smart Grid Infrastructure in the Arctic

Skarga-Bandurova, Inna; Kotsiuba, Igor

Abstract

Smart Grids is an emerging technology promising significant changes in the economy and the social sphere all over the world. Arctic region turns on a rapid transformation in its energy sector from being a consumer of electricity to producing, sharing, and storing energy deploying smart grid infrastructure. With that, due to often remote and extreme conditions, cybersecurity is one of many challenges in leveraging energy grids in the Arctic. Considering recent hackers’ attacks on energy grids and taking into account the distributed structure of these systems, the use of traditional means of computer protection and the search for a crime figure becomes more difficult or impossible. This chapter summarizes our previous work and the findings from a working group at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Governance for Cyber Security and Resilience in the Arctic as it pertains to critical infrastructure, held in Rovaniemi, Finland on 27–30 January 2019. It aims to introduce some application areas of smart grid security and forensics, discuss the opportunities, and outline the open issues in the topic. The several problems that may arise during the forensics process in smart grids and practical recommendations for their resolving are also discussed. According to recommendations of the UK National Cyber Security Center, we follow a four-step procedure to analyze logging architectures and highlight some issues related to the Chain of Custody (CoC) process. We also discuss challenges for forensic in smart grids in connection with a blockchain and propose a decentralized transaction platform based on blockchain tailored to the energy sector with all the latest technology such as advanced metering infrastructure, distributed generation, etc. Some aspects of developing a cyber-forensic framework for cyber-crime investigation based on the smart grid network data are also discussed.

Citation

Skarga-Bandurova, I., & Kotsiuba, I. (2020). Cyber Security and Resilience of Smart Grid Infrastructure in the Arctic. In B. D. Trump, K. Hossain, & I. Linkov (Eds.), Volume 58: Cybersecurity and Resilience in the Arctic (245-264). https://doi.org/10.3233/NICSP200051

• Online Publication Date: Jul 12, 2020
• Publication Date: Jul 12, 2020
• Deposit Date: Nov 10, 2023
• Pages: 245-264
• Book Title: Volume 58: Cybersecurity and Resilience in the Arctic
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3233/NICSP200051
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1904014
• Additional Information: no file attached - before author came to DU