Cybersecurity Testing of Substation Phasor Measurement Units and Phasor Data Concentrators

Morris, T., Pan, S., Lewis, J., Moorhead, J., Younan, N. H., King, R., Freund, M., & Madani, V. (2011). Cybersecurity Testing of Substation Phasor Measurement Units and Phasor Data Concentrators. Proceedings of The 7th Annual ACM Cyber Secruity and Information Intelligence Research Workshop (CSIIRW).. The 7th Annual ACM Cyber Secruity and Information Intelligence Research Workshop (CSIIRW)/Oak Ridge, TN: ACM.

Future bulk electric transmission systems will include substation automation, synchrophasor measurement systems, and automated control algorithms which leverage wide area monitoring system to better control the grid. Prior to installation of new networked devices, utilities should perform cybersecurity testing and develop corrective actions for identified vulnerabilities. This paper outlines testing performed prior to the installation of a synchrophasor wide area monitoring system. Phasor measurement unit and phasor data concentrator devices from multiple vendors were subjected to laboratory testing including; device security feature identification, port scans, network congestion testing, denial of service testing, protocol mutation testing, and network traffic disclosure testing. This paper outlines the procedures used to perform the testing and discusses the types of results expected from testing.