Is There a Relationship Between Grid Operators’ Cybersecurity Level and Electricity Outages? | SpringerLink
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Is There a Relationship Between Grid Operators’ Cybersecurity Level and Electricity Outages?

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Critical Information Infrastructures Security (CRITIS 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13723))

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Abstract

The main causes of electric power outages are natural calamity and various technical challenges. Technical challenges include cyber issues. We have used a correlation analysis to explore relationships between 56 Norwegian grid operators’ cybersecurity levels and outages. We have collected technical risk scores through BlackKite’s technical cyber rating tool and management risk scores from a survey performed by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate. Further, we collected outage data from the Norwegian Transmission System Operator. Our results show no clear relationship between grid operators’ cybersecurity level and outages. In an extension of our analysis, we found strong correlation between distribution substations and load disconnectors, and outages. Future work may therefore concentrate on cybersecurity specifically for these two grid component categories.

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References

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Susanne Nikolic at Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology for providing recommendations on the methodology for our correlation analysis.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Norwegian Energy Regulatory Authority, Oslo, Norway

    Øyvind Toftegaard

  2. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Gjøvik, Norway

    Øyvind Toftegaard & Bernhard Hämmerli

  3. Lucerne School of Computer Science and Information Technology, Luzern, Switzerland

    Bernhard Hämmerli

  4. The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, Oslo, Norway

    Jon-Martin Storm

  5. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Jon-Martin Storm

Authors
  1. Øyvind Toftegaard
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  2. Bernhard Hämmerli
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  3. Jon-Martin Storm
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Øyvind Toftegaard .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, Lucerne, Switzerland

    Bernhard Hämmerli

  2. Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany

    Udo Helmbrecht

  3. Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany

    Wolfgang Hommel

  4. Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany

    Leonhard Kunczik

  5. Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany

    Stefan Pickl

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Toftegaard, Ø., Hämmerli, B., Storm, JM. (2023). Is There a Relationship Between Grid Operators’ Cybersecurity Level and Electricity Outages?. In: Hämmerli, B., Helmbrecht, U., Hommel, W., Kunczik, L., Pickl, S. (eds) Critical Information Infrastructures Security. CRITIS 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13723. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35190-7_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35190-7_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-35189-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-35190-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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