Sunday, January 10, 2010

Massoud's Smart Grid 2010 Update


My Smart Grid Security blogging career began shortly after meeting Dr. Massoud Amin of the University of Minnesota and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and attending his presentation at an MIT/Sandia Labs Smart Grid workshop in early 2009.

For those who haven't yet met him, Massoud is a force of nature. In case you're not sure which type of force he is, I'll tell you: he is of the brilliant, massively energetic, patriotic and fortunately, quite benevolent kind. This video (6 mins) just released by U of Minn provides a nice Smart Grid introduction for generalists while making two security points along the way:
  1. as much as possible, security has got to be built in from the start, and
  2. broad and creative use of now super-cheap sensor systems can play a big role in keeping bad guys at bay
Point number one is of course correct in principle from where Jack and I stand, though will be sometimes tough to implement given how much of the Smart Grid is really the regular grid with retrofits and overlays of new tech on top. Point number two is excellent, as we hold that creative use of orthogonal data and the powerful analytics now available can help us identify malicious behavior early and rapidly adapt systems to keep 'em safe, if not always totally secure.

Here's Massoud's home page with some great material to mine. Recommend you check it out.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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