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Chavez, Adrian

Publications and source records attributed to Chavez, Adrian.

Cyber and Physical Security Analysis of GSI and Noventum Application for IoT Communications

We present our findings of the red team exercise conducted on the device and application developed by Guardian Sensors, Inc. (GSI) and Noventum. The app is used for situational awareness and control of photovoltaics (PV) and microgrid energy systems. The assessments performed are practical case scenarios that assess the risks and vulnerabilities posed by the app through targeted activities that could be engaged by an adversary. The assessment team’s results and recommendations are provided to inform on and mitigate the identified weaknesses to improve secure user authentication, connections, and communications. The recommendations in this report are not intended to be a security panacea but will add the desired defense-in-depth layer to securing communication of such interconnected systems.

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Proactive Intrusion Detection and Mitigation System

SAND2023-05661O The proactive intrusion detection and mitigation system (PIDMS) provides grid-edge situational awareness for cybersecurity defense by capturing real-time distributed energy resource (DER) network traffic and performance data with a novel approach that improves the detection and prevention of cyber-physical attacks. The PIDMS addresses the grid-edge security gap with real-time analysis of both network traffic and photovoltaic performance data to deliver a novel, cyber-physical intrusion detection system (IDS) approach that increases the accuracy and effectiveness of detection and mitigation. This hybrid IDS analysis enables dual monitoring that increases the workload of the adversary; both cyber and physical data would have to be simultaneously spoofed to evade detection. Furthermore, monitoring and analyzing cyber data are insufficient in some cases. For example, in an insider threat aimed at disrupting inverter grid-support functions where proper credentials and authentication are achieved, only the altered PV performance would indicate abnormal behavior. All in all, the PIDMS provides novel capabilities for: • Distributed, real-time cyber-physical detection and mitigation analysis • Cybersecurity defense for grid-edge systems • Analysis framework that can provide situational awareness across the transmission, distribution, and DER systems The PIDMS sensor is designed to collect cyber-physical data, process the data using machine-learning algorithms, detect abnormal events, and deploy mitigations. With these goals, the main functional PIDMS objectives are: • Capability to collect cyber-physical data • Onboard storage of cyber-physical data • Peer-to-peer communication • Computationally efficient machine-learning algorithms • Online cyber-physical data analysis • Alerting/visualization capabilities • Mitigation deployment capability with bump-in-the-wire (BITW) implementation Each of these functional objectives enable PIDMS to perform effective cyber-physical intrusion detection and mitigation. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Jones, Christian↗

DER Cybersecurity Detection and Response Suite

SAND2024-08475O The Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Cybersecurity Detection and Response Suite is a solution for distributed energy resource (DER) systems. The DER Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solution that uses alerts from signature- and behavior-based Intrusion Detection Systems are intended to be deployed as bump-in-the-wire (BITW) devices in front of DER equipment. The fielded application would use multiple intrusion detection systems that report data to SOAR to respond to cyberattacks. The suite consists of two software components: • The proactive intrusion detection and mitigation system (PIDMS) secures grid-edge photovoltaic smart inverters and other equipment in distributed energy resource systems. It is a distributed BITW solution; cyber and physical data are automatically processed using network inspection tools and custom machine learning algorithms to detect abnormal events and correlate cyber-physical events. • The Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response for Distributed Energy Resources (SOAR4DER) application ingests data from several intrusion detection systems to quickly block attacks and revert DER systems to good states. Using a collection of intrusion detection system technologies on a BITW device, it incorporates physical and cyber data to detect abnormal and potential malicious behaviors. Multiple SOAR playbooks then use the intrusion detection system data streams to automatically defend the system. SOAR4DER system testing showed detection and response times under 30 seconds for all adversary reconnaissance, denial-of-service attacks, malicious Modbus commands, brute-force logins, and machine-in-the-middle attacks. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Johnson, Jay↗

Networked Microgrid Cybersecurity Architecture Design Guide: A New Jersey TRANSITGRID Use Case

Microgrids require reliable communication systems for equipment control, power delivery optimization, and operational visibility. To maintain secure communications, Microgrid Operational Technology (OT) networks must be defensible and cyber-resilient. The communication network must be carefully architected with appropriate cyber-hardening technologies to provide security defenders the data, analytics, and response capabilities to quickly mitigate malicious and accidental cyberattacks. In this work, we outline several best practices and technologies that can support microgrid operations (e.g., intrusion detection and monitoring systems, response tools, etc.). Then we apply these recommendations to the New Jersey TRANSITGRID use case to demonstrate how they would be deployed in practice.

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