Electrical and Computer Engineering Commons^™

Application Of Machine Learning And Cyber Security In Smart Grid, Soham Dutta Dr.

Technical Collection

Unplanned islanding of microgrids is a major hindrance in providing continuous power supply to the critical loads. The detection of these islanding instants needs to be very fast so that the distributed generators (DG) are able to take control actions in minimum time. Due to high quality data at a rapid rate, micro phasor measurement unit (μ-PMU) are becoming widely popular in distribution system and micro grids. These μ-PMUs can be leveraged for island detection. However, the working of μ-PMU is hugely dependent on communication network for data transmission which is prone to cyber-attacks. In view of the above facts, …

Future Needs Of The Cybersecurity Workforce, Connie Justice, Char Sample, Sin Ming Loo, Alex Ball, Clay Hampton

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Expected growth of the job market for cyber security professionals in both the US and the UK remains strong for the foreseeable future. While there are many roles to be found in cyber security, that vary from penetration tester to chief information security officer (CISO). One job of particular interest is security architect. The rise in Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) implementations, especially in the cloud environment, promises an increase in the demand for these security professionals. A security architect requires a set of knowledge, skills, and abilities covering the responsibility for integrating the various security components to successfully support an …

Smart Metering Communication Protocols And Performance Under Cyber Security Vulnerabilities, Oscar A. Alvarez

Theses and Dissertations

The communication process is the key that characterizes the modern concept of smart grid, a new technology that introduced a “two-way communication” in energy measurement systems and can be best represented through the smart meters. Hence, the goal of smart metering communication is to ensure a secure and reliable transmission of information that can only be accessed by end users and energy supplying companies. With the goal of improving the information security in smart energy grids, the research presented in this work focused on studying different advanced metering infrastructure communication protocols and, it showcases a series of experiments performed on …

Impact Assessment, Detection, And Mitigation Of False Data Attacks In Electrical Power Systems, Sagnik Basumallik

Dissertations - ALL

The global energy market has seen a massive increase in investment and capital flow in the last few decades. This has completely transformed the way power grids operate - legacy systems are now being replaced by advanced smart grid infrastructures that attest to better connectivity and increased reliability. One popular example is the extensive deployment of phasor measurement units, which is referred to PMUs, that constantly provide time-synchronized phasor measurements at a high resolution compared to conventional meters. This enables system operators to monitor in real-time the vast electrical network spanning thousands of miles. However, a targeted cyber attack on …

Impact Assessment, Detection, And Mitigation Of False Data Attacks In Electrical Power Systems, Sagnik Basumallik

Dissertations - ALL

The global energy market has seen a massive increase in investment and capital flow in the last few decades. This has completely transformed the way power grids operate - legacy systems are now being replaced by advanced smart grid infrastructures that attest to better connectivity and increased reliability. One popular example is the extensive deployment of phasor measurement units, which is referred to PMUs, that constantly provide time-synchronized phasor measurements at a high resolution compared to conventional meters. This enables system operators to monitor in real-time the vast electrical network spanning thousands of miles. However, a targeted cyber attack on …

A New Classification Method For Encrypted Internet Traffic Using Machine Learning, Mesut Uğurlu, İbrahi̇m Alper Doğru, Recep Si̇nan Arslan

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

The rate of internet usage in the world is over 62% and this rate is increasing day by day. With this increase, it becomes important to ensure the confidentiality of the information in the traffic flowing over the internet. Encryption algorithms and protocols are used for this purpose. This situation, which is beneficial for normal users, is also used by attackers to hide. Cyber attackers or hackers gain the ability to bypass security precautions such as IDS/IPS and antivirus systems with using encrypted traffic. Since payload analysis cannot be performed without deciphering the encrypted traffic, existing commercial security solutions fall …

A Study Of Security Problems In Big Data And Their Solutions, Nozima Akhmedova

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

Statistical data on information security that concerns Big Data and is the most important for enterprises are provided. Based on this data, we studied problems such as the lack of big data practices and protection, the lack of techniques for protecting big data, the lack of standards for protecting big data, the lack of regulation of big data and ecosystems, security problems in Big Data, and proposed several proposals to improve the security of systems that use this technology.

Graphical Convolution Network Based Semi-Supervised Methods For Detecting Pmu Data Manipulation Attacks, Wenyu Wang

Theses and Dissertations

With the integration of information and communications technologies (ICTs) into the power grid, electricity infrastructures are gradually transformed towards smart grid and power systems become more open to and accessible from outside networks. With ubiquitous sensors, computers and communication networks, modern power systems have become complicated cyber-physical systems. The cyber security issues and the impact of potential attacks on the smart grid have become an important issue. Among these attacks, false data injection attack (FDIA) becomes a growing concern because of its varied types and impacts. Several detection algorithms have been developed in the last few years, which were model-based, …

Cyber Security Evaluation Of Smart Electric Meters, Harsh Kumar

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, effect of intermediate network systems on power usage data collection from Smart Electric Meter in Smart Grid was evaluated. Security integrity of remote data collection from GE’s Power Quality Smart Electric Meter EPM 6100 and EPM 7000 under cyber-attacks were evaluated. Experimental security evaluations of Smart Electric Meters were conducted to understand their operation under cyber-attacks. Integrity of data communication between the GE’s smart meters and remote monitoring computer was evaluated under different types of cyber security attacks. Performance comparison was done for security integrity of EPM 6100 and EPM 7000 power quality meter under various cyber-attacks.

Formally Designing And Implementing Cyber Security Mechanisms In Industrial Control Networks., Mehdi Sabraoui

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes progress in the state-of-the-art for developing and deploying formally verified cyber security devices in industrial control networks. It begins by detailing the unique struggles that are faced in industrial control networks and why concepts and technologies developed for securing traditional networks might not be appropriate. It uses these unique struggles and examples of contemporary cyber-attacks targeting control systems to argue that progress in securing control systems is best met with formal verification of systems, their specifications, and their security properties. This dissertation then presents a development process and identifies two technologies, TLA+ and seL4, that can be …

Secure Control And Operation Of Energy Cyber-Physical Systems Through Intelligent Agents, Mohamad El Hariri

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The operation of the smart grid is expected to be heavily reliant on microprocessor-based control. Thus, there is a strong need for interoperability standards to address the heterogeneous nature of the data in the smart grid. In this research, we analyzed in detail the security threats of the Generic Object Oriented Substation Events (GOOSE) and Sampled Measured Values (SMV) protocol mappings of the IEC 61850 data modeling standard, which is the most widely industry-accepted standard for power system automation and control. We found that there is a strong need for security solutions that are capable of defending the grid against …

Analysis Of Bulk Power System Resilience Using Vulnerability Graph, Md Ariful Haque

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Critical infrastructure such as a Bulk Power System (BPS) should have some quantifiable measure of resiliency and definite rule-sets to achieve a certain resilience value. Industrial Control System (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) networks are integral parts of BPS. BPS or ICS are themselves not vulnerable because of their proprietary technology, but when the control network and the corporate network need to have communications for performance measurements and reporting, the ICS or BPS become vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Thus, a systematic way of quantifying resiliency and identifying crucial nodes in the network is critical for addressing the cyber …

Dependability Enhancing Mechanisms For Integrated Clinical Environments, Wenbing Zhao, Mary Q. Yang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this article, we present a set of lightweight mechanisms to enhance the dependability of a safety-critical real-time distributed system referred to as an integrated clinical environment (ICE). In an ICE, medical devices are interconnected and work together with the help of a supervisory computer system to enhance patient safety during clinical operations. Inevitably, there are strong dependability requirements on the ICE. We introduce a set of mechanisms that essentially make the supervisor component a trusted computing base, which can withstand common hardware failures and malicious attacks. The mechanisms rely on the replication of the supervisor component and employ only …

A Framework For Categorization Of Industrial Control System Cyber Training Environments, Evan G. Plumley

Theses and Dissertations

First responders and professionals in hazardous occupations undergo training and evaluations for the purpose of mitigating risk and damage. For example, helicopter pilots train with multiple categorized simulations that increase in complexity before flying a real aircraft. However in the industrial control cyber incident response domain, where incident response professionals help detect, respond and recover from cyber incidents, no official categorization of training environments exist. To address this gap, this thesis provides a categorization of industrial control training environments based on realism. Four levels of environments are proposed and mapped to Blooms Taxonomy. This categorization will help organizations determine which …

Digital Forensics In Law Enforcement: A Needs Based Analysis Of Indiana Agencies, Teri A. Cummins Flory

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Cyber crime is a growing problem, with the impact to society increasing exponentially, but the ability of local law enforcement agencies to investigate and successfully prosecute criminals for these crimes is unclear. Many national needs assessments have previously been conducted, and all indicated that state and local law enforcement did not have the training, tools, or staff to effectively conduct digital investigations, but very few have been completed recently. This study provided a current and localized assessment of the ability of Indiana law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate crimes involving digital evidence, the availability of training for both law enforcement …

Whatsapp Network Forensics: Decrypting And Understanding The Whatsapp Call Signaling Messages, Filip Karpisek, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

WhatsApp is a widely adopted mobile messaging application with over 800 million users. Recently, a calling feature was added to the application and no comprehensive digital forensic analysis has been performed with regards to this feature at the time of writing this paper. In this work, we describe how we were able to decrypt the network traffic and obtain forensic artifacts that relate to this new calling feature which included the: a) WhatsApp phone numbers, b) WhatsApp server IPs, c) WhatsApp audio codec (Opus), d) WhatsApp call duration, and e) WhatsApp's call termination. We explain the methods and tools used …

Data Security And Privacy In Smart Grid, Yue Tong

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores novel data security and privacy problems in the emerging smart grid.

The need for data security and privacy spans the whole life cycle of the data in the smart grid, across the phases of data acquisition, local processing and archiving, collaborative processing, and finally sharing and archiving. The first two phases happen in the private domains of an individual utility company, where data are collected from the power system and processed at the local facilities. When data are being acquired and processed in the private domain, data security is the most critical concern. The key question is …

On Cyber Attacks And Signature Based Intrusion Detection For Modbus Based Industrial Control Systems, Wei Gao, Thomas H. Morris

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Industrial control system communication networks are vulnerable to reconnaissance, response injection, command injection, and denial of service attacks. Such attacks can lead to an inability to monitor and control industrial control systems and can ultimately lead to system failure. This can result in financial loss for control system operators and economic and safety issues for the citizens who use these services. This paper describes a set of 28 cyber attacks against industrial control systems which use the MODBUS application layer network protocol. The paper also describes a set of standalone and state based intrusion detection system rules which can be …

Developing A Conceptual Framework For Modeling Deviant Cyber Flash Mob: A Socio-Computational Approach Leveraging Hypergraph Constructs, Samer Al-Khateeb, Nitin Agarwal

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In a Flash Mob (FM) a group of people get together in the physical world perform an unpredicted act and disperse quickly. Cyber Flash Mob (CFM) is the cyber manifestation of flash mob coordinated primarily using social media. Deviant Cyber Flash Mob (or, DCFM) is a special case of CFM, which is categorized as the new face of transnational crime organizations (TCOs). The DCFM phenomenon can be considered as a form of a cyber-collective action that is defined as an action aiming to improve group’s conditions (such as, status or power). In this paper, we conduct a conceptual analysis of …

A Survey On Smart Grid Communication Infrastructures: Motivations, Requirements And Challenges, Ye Yan, Yi Qian, Hamid Sharif, David Tipper

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A communication infrastructure is an essential part to the success of the emerging smart grid. A scalable and pervasive communication infrastructure is crucial in both construction and operation of a smart grid. In this paper, we present the background and motivation of communication infrastructures in smart grid systems. We also summarize major requirements that smart grid communications must meet. From the experience of several industrial trials on smart grid with communication infrastructures, we expect that the traditional carbon fuel based power plants can cooperate with emerging distributed renewable energy such as wind, solar, etc, to reduce the carbon fuel consumption …

An Australian Perspective On The Challenges For Computer And Network Security For Novice Endusers, Patryk Szewczyk

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

It is common for end-users to have difficulty in using computer or network security appropriately and thus have often been ridiculed when misinterpreting instructions or procedures. This discussion paper details the outcomes of research undertaken over the past six years on why security is overly complex for endusers. The results indicate that multiple issues may render end-users vulnerable to security threats and that there is no single solution to address these problems. Studies on a small group of senior citizens has shown that educational seminars can be beneficial in ensuring that simple security aspects are understood and used appropriately.

Electronic Publishing For Engineering Education, Donald G. Dudley

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Electronic transmission of text is a revolution in progress with a profound effect on engineering education. As with all revolutions, the result is both a threat and a promise. The promise is the ease and speed of dissemination of text. The threat involves serious difficulties that arise in efforts to protect the intellectual property rights of the authors and publishers of the technical information. In this paper, we discuss both the threat and the promise. We highlight the differences in dealing with books and with journals. We give a wide range of examples from both inside of and outside of …