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PublicationCybersecurity in Power Grids: Challenges and Opportunities( 2021)Increasing volatilities within power transmission and distribution force power grid operators to amplify their use of communication infrastructure to monitor and control their grid. The resulting increase in communication creates a larger attack surface for malicious actors. Indeed, cyber attacks on power grids have already succeeded in causing temporary, large-scale blackouts in the recent past. In this paper, we analyze the communication infrastructure of power grids to derive resulting fundamental challenges of power grids with respect to cybersecurity. Based on these challenges, we identify a broad set of resulting attack vectors and attack scenarios that threaten the security of power grids. To address these challenges, we propose to rely on a defense-in-depth strategy, which encompasses measures for (i) device and application security, (ii) network security, and (iii) physical security, as well as (iv) policies, procedures, and awareness. For each of these categories, we distill and discuss a comprehensive set of state-of-the art approaches, as well as identify further opportunities to strengthen cybersecurity in interconnected power grids.
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PublicationTowards an approach to contextual detection of multi-stage cyber attacks in smart grids( 2021)Electric power grids are at risk of being compromised by high-impact cyber-security threats such as coordinated, timed attacks. Navigating this new threat landscape requires a deep understanding of the potential risks and complex attack processes in energy information systems, which in turn demands an unmanageable manual effort to timely process a large amount of cross-domain information. To provide an adequate basis to contextually assess and understand the situation of smart grids in case of coordinated cyber-attacks, we need a systematic and coherent approach to identify cyber incidents. In this paper, we present an approach that collects and correlates cross-domain cyber threat information to detect multi-stage cyber-attacks in energy information systems. We investigate the applicability and performance of the presented correlation approach and discuss the results to highlight challenges in domain-specific detection mechanisms.
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PublicationFinding and analysing energy research funding data: The EnArgus system( 2021)
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PublicationGraph-based model of smart grid architectures( 2020)The rising use of information and communication technology in smart grids likewise increases the risk of failures that endanger the security of power supply, e.g., due to errors in the communication configuration, faulty control algorithms, or cyber-attacks. Co-simulations can be used to investigate such effects, but require precise modeling of the energy, communication, and information domain within an integrated smart grid infrastructure model. Given the complexity and lack of detailed publicly available communication network models for smart grid scenarios, there is a need for an automated and systematic approach to creating such coupled models. In this paper, we present an approach to automatically generate smart grid infrastructure models based on an arbitrary electrical distribution grid model using a generic architectural template. We demonstrate the applicability and unique features of our approach alongside examples concerning network planning, co-simulation se tup, and specification of domain-specific intrusion detection systems.
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PublicationFactDAG: Formalizing Data Interoperability in an Internet of Production( 2020)In the production industry, the volume, variety, and velocity of data as well as the number of deployed protocols increase exponentially due to the influences of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) advances. While hundreds of isolated solutions exist to utilize these data, e.g., optimizing processes or monitoring machine conditions, the lack of a unified data handling and exchange mechanism hinders the implementation of approaches to improve the quality of decisions and processes in such an interconnected environment. The vision of an Internet of Production promises the establishment of a Worldwide Lab, where data from every process in the network can be utilized, even interorganizational and across domains. While numerous existing approaches consider interoperability from an interface and communication system perspective, fundamental questions of data and information interoperability remain insufficiently addressed. In this article, we identify ten key issues, derived from three distinctive real-world use cases that hinder large-scale data interoperability for industrial processes. Based on these issues, we derive a set of five key requirements for future (IoT) data layers, building upon the FAIR data principles. We propose to address them by creating FactDAG, a conceptual data layer model for maintaining a provenance-based, directed acyclic graph of facts, inspired by successful distributed version-control and collaboration systems. Eventually, such a standardization should greatly shape the future of interoperability in an interconnected production industry.
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PublicationSituational awareness, information exchange and operational control for civilian EU missions( 2019)The European Union conducts a common security and defence policy (CSDP) that follows an integrated approach to external conflict and crisis. One means of the CSDP are external civilian missions, in some cases operating with military missions in the same operational environments. In order to better support the conduct of civilian missions, a Horizon 2020 project was awarded to propose design options for a ""Situational Awareness, Information Exchange and Operational Control Platform"", in short an ""operational control platform"" (OCP). The design of the OCP raises challenges that are relevant not only for European CSDP missions but also for crisis management operations in general, namely questions of situational awareness, interoperability, security and local versus remote operational control. The Civilex project has provided an overview of the actual state of operational control in CSDP missions, investigated current challenges, collected requirements for an OCP and, ultimately, proposed design options for a future platform with the goal to improve situational awareness, information exchange and operational control for CSDP missions. This paper presents the outcomes of the Civilex project.
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PublicationEnArgus 2.0 - Zentrales Informationssystem Energieforschungsförderung. Schlussbericht(Fraunhofer FIT, 2017)
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PublicationEnArgus: Zentrales Informationssystem Energieforschungsförderung( 2015)
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PublicationEnArgus - ontology based search( 2015)This paper presents the EnArgus Project - a project which aims to make energy research funding more transparent and includes the use and development of an ontology. The structure of the paper is as follows: first, we will present the EnArgus project, its domain, and its main goals. Next, we will describe the domain-specific ontology which we developed for EnArgus. This will lead to a description of how that ontology has been constructed and evaluated. Finally, we will discuss describe how the whole system has been evaluated.
