Have you ever observed the small metallic packing containers connected to utility poles? If you’re like most individuals, you most likely haven’t paid a lot consideration to those cupboards. For Cisco and our accomplice, SEL, these utility cupboards offered a chance for innovation.
Inside every metallic field are two units: a recloser management, which mitigates the risks of unusually excessive electrical currents, and a router, which makes use of mobile service and a digital non-public community (VPN) to hyperlink the recloser management to the utilities’ wide-area community (WAN). The VPN protects grid communications between the packing containers and the management middle.
But there’s nonetheless a vulnerability inside every field. Cisco and SEL have joined forces to safe what is sort of actually the “last foot” in distribution automation.
Cisco and SEL’s resolution for the ‘last foot’ downside
Though hardened for bodily safety, utility packing containers will not be unimaginable to breach. Breaking into one yields entry to the recloser management, the router, and the community cable – normally about one foot – that connects the 2 items of {hardware}.
Currently, these units talk with clear textual content, so vital communications may be learn by anybody with the technical know-how to intercept them. In different phrases, this “last foot” represents a possible vulnerability as an entry level to break or assume management of the recloser. That might result in undesirable penalties – starting from nuisance upkeep duties to energy grid disruption.
Together, Cisco and SEL have created the primary resolution for encrypting the community visitors that travels the quick however crucial distance between an SEL-651R/RA recloser controls and a Cisco Catalyst IR1101 Rugged Router.
We constructed this resolution utilizing IEEE 802.1AE Media Access Control Security (MACsec) and the MACsec Key Agreement (MKA) portion of 802.1X Port-Based Network Access Control. We selected MACsec as a result of it’s a mature, confirmed, and open normal. It’s additionally steady, having undergone few updates since its publication in 2006 but it nonetheless delivers robust encryption as we speak.
Applying this normal on Cisco and SEL {hardware}, it turns into potential to safe recloser communications with out investing in exterior units. The resolution will likely be out there on the finish of 2022, enabling utilities to start upgrading their distribution automation setting.
Coordinating actions throughout practical teams inside the utility may be extraordinarily troublesome. With that in thoughts, we designed the answer to be applied in two phases. The first part includes a truck roll to bodily replace every location as required. The second part includes updating the configuration and may be dealt with remotely and with none disruption of service to the grid.
Going the additional mile for the ‘last foot’
As safety threats and dangers to utilities proceed to extend, this standards-based resolution from Cisco and SEL represents a vitally vital device for hardening crucial infrastructure. We invite you to dive deeper into the answer by studying Securing the ‘Last Foot’ in Distribution Automation, a white paper Cisco and SEL printed throughout DistribuTECH.
To discover how this resolution may also help you, contact us.
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