Cyber Security and Information Systems Information Analysis Center

The Efficacy and Challenges of SCADA and Smart Grid Integration The advent and evolution of the Smart Grid initiative to improve the electric utility power infrastructure has brought with it a number of opportunities for improving efficiencies, but along with those benefits come challenges in the effort to assure safety, security, and reliability for utilities and consumers alike. One of the considerations in designing the capabilities of the Smart Grid is the integration of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to allow the utility to remotely monitor and control network devices as a means of achieving reliability and demand efficiencies for the utility as a whole. Given the ability of these systems to control the flow of electricity throughout the network, additional planning and forethought is required to ensure all possible measures for pre‐ venting compromise are considered. This work discusses the overall architecture(s) used today and some of the measures currently implemented to secure those architectures as they evolve. More importantly, it considers simplifying the complexity of implementing the many standards put forth by applicable standards and regulatory bodies as a means to achieve realistic governance.