Testbed Infrastructure Proposal (Center Energy) for Electricity Power Grid and Defence in Depth Practice on The Proposal

Year 2022, Volume: 11 Issue: 2, 52 - 68, 30.06.2022

İbrahim Özçelik , Murat İskefiyeli , Musa Balta , Firdevs Sevde Toker

Abstract

Nowadays, Industrial Control Systems became more vulnerable because of integration of Information Systems and
Operational Systems. And also critical infrastructures, such as energy, water, petrol etc., are more important ICS must be secured
for threats. The methods to secure the critical infrastructures may be both by hardware or software. And by the way, the scientist
and the engineers are implementing hardware and software solutions for securing. But the problem is how and where to test their
solutions. The solutions cannot be tested in real systems, because critical infrastructures are systems that run 24/7 and cannot be
stopped. During the test the system may be in fault. The testbeds can be used as modelling tool and they represent the real systems,
with same devices, network topologies, processes etc., that means testbeds are realistic hardware and software environment that
to test solutions without having the ultimate system. For this purpose, a testbed center called “Center Energy” has been established
in order to carry out studies on the critical infrastructure of the electrical power grid for the purposes such as education of security
researchers, and the development of national/international attack and defense solutions. In this study, the information about the
architectural structure of Center Energy, implemented according to the Purdue model, and the process scope of the substation
and distribution center owned by the electricity transmission and distribution companies, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data
Acquisition) and data management are given, as well as the SOC (Security Operation Center) implemented in accordance with the
Defense in Depth approach of this architecture. Studies related to its activities are also presented.

Keywords

Critical infrastructures, energy management, ICS testbeds, security, SOC

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