A Situational Awareness Architecture for the Smart Grid

Components of the electric power grid that were traditionally deployed in physically isolated networks, are now using IP based, interconnected networks to transmit Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) messages. SCADA protocols were not designed with security in mind. Therefore, in order to enhance security, access control and risk mitigation, operators need detailed and accurate information about the status, integrity, configuration and network topology of SCADA devices. This paper describes a comprehensive system architecture that provides situational awareness (SA) for SCADA devices and their operations in a Smart Grid environment. The proposed SA architecture collects and analyzes industrial traffic and stores relevant information, verifies the integrity and the status of field devices and reports identified anomalies to operators.