Resilient distribution grids — cyber threat scenarios and test environment

Abstract

With the advent of the smart grid, a highly connected and communicative power grid, many new threats have to be considered, and new concepts for the grid to "fail smartly" in the inevitable event of security intrusion are needed. This paper reviews a collection of possible cyber threat scenarios as well as outlines of counter measures to different aspects of the communication infrastructure and components of a future power grid. These scenarios aim to define a test framework to future solutions for resilient distribution grid operation. To allow the evaluation of the effects of possible counter measures to these threats a specialised test environment is presented.