Aurora Hardware Mitigation: Utility Test Bed Status and Results to Date

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Presented at ICScybersecCon 2014 by

Steve Brunasso

Jeff Stebbins

We are a moderate sized Electric Cooperative and we have provided a distribution substation as a test bed for Aurora hardware mitigation. We are also making this facility available for other security related tests. This substation is loop fed on the transmission side and is devoted to a large facility (several megawatts) on the low voltage side. We have installed two separate relay packages on one of the breakers serving the facility. These packages are connected just as they would be in a normal substation application with the exception that the contacts that would initiate a circuit breaker trip are not connected to the breaker trip circuit. We are able to monitor any Aurora events on this circuit without disrupting the service on this feeder. We have provided data to the research staff and will continue to do so on a quarterly basis. We are considering other opportunities for researchers to study other requests to use this substation to identify other threats to our electrical distribution system. We have not initiated any additional studies yet but anticipate doing so by 1st quarter-2015.