Smart grid cybersecurity lab opened in Britain

A state of the art smart grid laboratory has been opened at Thales’ UK Cyber Resilience Lab in Ebbw Vale, South Wales.

The new smart grid lab, a collaboration between Thales and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL), is aimed to provide tailored solutions and expertise to support SEL’s cybersecurity needs in the development of technologies for the UK energy market.

Through the lab Thales and SEL intend to provide cybersecurity training and workshops for electrical utilities and critical infrastructure operators, covering system hardening, vulnerability and risk assessments, network design and intrusion detection strategies.

The lab will exercise realistic cyberattacks and threats found in the OT environment, including process bus and time synchronisation attacks. Using real-time data in a secure, offline environment, these simulations allow operators to assess and improve their cyber-threat preparedness.

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The facilities also are intended to support testing and research on secure-by-design solutions and the resilience of complex cyber-physical systems across critical infrastructure in conjunction with academic institutions.

In addition Thales and SEL will be enabled to perform test-and-learn demonstrations across a range of technologies for electrical utilities and critical national infrastructure operators.

“This is a milestone partnership in terms of protecting the future of the UK’s energy supplies and critical infrastructure,” said Tony Burton, Managing Director Cybersecurity & Trust at Thales UK at the opening.

“The stakes for securing smart grids are incredibly high. Their future resilience requires robust cybersecurity measures to be ‘designed in’ to the infrastructure and comprehensively tested and exercised, and that’s where Ebbw Vale comes into play. Regularly stress-testing infrastructure and raising awareness levels is the only way to truly understand the threat and build effective mitigations.”

Gerardo Urrea, Senior Vice President of Sales and Customer Service at SEL added: “This modern smart grid laboratory provides invaluable opportunities for critical infrastructure operators to better understand and address potential vulnerabilities.

“Cybersecurity has been an SEL focus from the beginning, and we are pleased to partner with Thales and to be able to serve the electric power industry, and others, in this way.”