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Hadley, Mark

Publications and source records attributed to Hadley, Mark.

Secure Software Defined Radio Project: Secure Wireless Systems for the Energy Sector (Briefing 6)

Strong industry interest in the SEL-FLT/FLR products has led to a large number of customers conducting various lab and field trial evaluations of the system. These trials are on-going but have allowed SEL to collect enough information about operation and deployment and security capabilities of the system to conclude the field demo phase of the project. The field-testing topical report has been completed and submitted. SEL has also prepared a SEL-FLT/FLR best practices guide based on learnings from the field demo phase of the project. This best practice guide has also been submitted. The final deliverable from this phase of the project is an economic and operational benefits white paper, which has also been written and submitted. The overall objective of the project, extending the cyber security capabilities of utility wired networks into last mile wireless networks has been successfully achieved. SEL chose to target a sensor network for implementation of this capability because it was one area of last mile networking where there was substantial need and opportunity. Based on customer interest in the product these efforts have been a success. Interest in, and support for many of the security features of the product has been expressed by customers trialing the product system. Key security features customers value are strong data encryption, sensor white listing, and use of secure account based log on for access to the system. These and other features of the product have gained strong acceptance from customers interested in purchasing these products. All project deliverables and tasks are now complete, and the project can be closed out.

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Watchdog Project

The Watchdog Project completed 100% of the project Statement of Project Objective (SOPO). The Watchdog project was a very aggressive project looking to accomplish commercialization of technology that had never been commercialized, as a result it took six years to complete not the original three that were planned. No additional federal funds were requested from the original proposal and SEL contributed the additional cost share required to complete the project. The result of the Watchdog Project is the world’s first industrial rated Software Defined Network (SDN) switch commercially available. This technology achieved the SOPOO and DOE Roadmap goals to have strong network access control, improve reliability and network performance, and give the asset owner the ability to minimize attack surface before and during an attack. The Watchdog project is an alliance between CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL), and Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. (SEL). SEL is the world’s leader in microprocessor-based electronic equipment for protecting electric power systems. PNNL performs basic and applied research to deliver energy, environmental, and national security for our nation. CenterPoint Energy is the third largest publicly traded natural gas delivery company in the U.S and third largest combined electricity and natural gas delivery company. The Watchdog Project efforts were combined with the SDN Project efforts to produce the entire SDN system solution for the critical infrastructure. The Watchdog project addresses Topic Area of Interest 5: Secure Communications, for the DEFOA- 0000359 by protecting the control system local area network itself and the communications coming from and going to the electronic devices on the local network. Local area networks usually are not routed and have little or no filtering capabilities. Combine this with the fact control system protocols are designed with inherent trust the control system owners have very little choice on how to protect communications on the local network. The Watchdog project reduces security risks in electric sector control system local area networks (LANs) by providing: Network access control (NAC) Multi-Layer firewall (physical through transport layer) Containment of malware or unauthorized traffic spreading across the network White list protocols and application message types filtering Configurable, proactive traffic engineering The Watchdog project achieved all of the above by developing an SDN switch.

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