Securing the Smart Grid: Next Generation Power Grid Security at Dominant Systems Book Store

"The first step in securing the Smart Grid is to fully understand the threat landscape. This book provides both a timely and relevant overview of the subject - a must-read for anyone responsible for securing the grid as well as consumers looking to implement the technology!."-- Dr. Patrick Engebretson, Assistant Professor of Computer Security, Dakota State University.

"Easy to read and full of valuable information, this book provides a wide-eyed view of our future and the security challenges we will be facing in our day-to-day lives. Exploring everything from home systems to large-scale power plants, this is a must-read for everyone in our technological society."-- Thomas Wilhelm, ISSMP, CISSP, SCSECA, SCNA, SCSA, IEM, IAM

Customer Reviews & Comments
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) Smart power grids will depend on the deployment of software and devices that collectively will participate in the automated management of the production, transmission, and distribution of electric power. Some software and devices will also provide conveniences to consumers, such as the capability to remotely turn on and off smart appliances, and monitor or report power usage statistics in near real time. The introduction of such software and devices to our power grid provides benefits, but also introduces security risks because the software and devices are potential hacking targets. This book provides a conceptual framework for thinking about such security risks and how to manage them by understanding who may want to attack smart grids, what their motives might be, how they might carry out their attacks, the potential impacts of those attacks, and good countermeasures and security practices to adhere to (e.g., threat modeling, code reviews, regular vulnerability assessments, network segmentation, encryption, strong passwords, etc). The discussions cover a wide range of topics, including: how consumers and utility companies may suffer financially when hackers are able to compromise data integrity and cause inaccurate meter readings to be used as basis for billing; how the theft or interception of confidential information can be used against consumers or utility companies; and how denial of services attacks can be launched to make power unavailable to consumers. Although the discussions have breadth, they lack technical depth; instead, readers are referred to other references for more in depth discussions of specific topics. The book consists of 14 chapters, almost a third of which is devoted to general descriptions of what the laws recently passed by the federal and various state governments require utility companies, and the vendors that work with them, to do to securely deploy smart grid technologies. The remaining chapters delve into smart grid topologies, what Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability mean as security concepts, what the potential impact of various attacks are on these three security pillars, and so on. The book is easy to read but some of the information in a few chapters are quite redundant. If you already have exposure to analyzing security flaws and vulnerabilities in software and networks, this book may not provide much incremental value to you as it doesn't go much further beyond such analyses. But if you are a relative novice to security concepts and just want to get a general feel for how they apply to smart grids, then by all means, give this book your consideration.

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