"Securing The Smart Grid"
Birol Yeşilada, government faculty and director of Portland State University's (PSU) Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, is the principal investigator of a new two-year $2 million grant awarded to PSU by the National Security Agency (NSA). This grant establishes and funds a consortium of public, private, and academic partners aimed at addressing cybersecurity issues associated with smart grid infrastructure in Colorado, Hawaii, and the Pacific Northwest. The smart grid offers many benefits, including improved transmission, better integration of renewable sources (e.g., wind, solar, and wave energy), and improved mitigation of the impact of power outages. However, security risks still exist due to the smart grid's network connections. The smart grid is vulnerable to physical attacks and cyberattacks targeting power plants and other power infrastructure. A holistic approach is required to protect municipal, regional, and state governments, as well as public utilities and other critical users such as healthcare providers, police, and fire districts from cyber threats to the smart grid. The approach to addressing cybersecurity and the smart grid from the bottom-up starts with understanding the related risks and challenges. Stakeholders must be brought together to gain this understanding. These stakeholders include partner colleges and universities in Colorado, Hawaii, and the Pacific Northwest, and federal agencies such as the Department of Energy. They also include Portland General Electric and other private sector organizations. Management and planning tools will be developed to help link the challenges related to the smart grid to the research, development, policy, and education required to address those challenges. Yeşilada and the Portland State team, together with consortium members, will then lead exercises that integrate real-world equipment to analyze and assess current technologies, and discover future smart grid solutions. This article continues to discuss the new grant awarded by NSA for a project aimed at addressing cybersecurity threats facing the smart grid.