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Test & Measurement System Security in an IT World

Automated test and measurement systems are coming under increased cybersecurity scrutiny. Most of these systems fall under the “Operational Technology” designation, as defined by NIST, and often have unique requirements that conflict with enterprise security policy. These systems are typically not well understood by traditional enterprise IT personnel, which leaves them ill-supported or invalidated.▪This presentation attempts to help Test System owners recognize the security landscape, determine their unique system requirements and concerns, and negotiate a peer-level working arrangement with an existing IT department while maintaining a NIST-recommended level of autonomy and sovereignty.

automated test

Adaptive Cybersecurity for Distributed Energy Resources (AdCyDER): Online Reinforcement Learning with Stackelberg-Optimized Defenses — Pipeline Architecture, Evaluation Methodology, and Findings from a Synthetic-Data Evaluation

This report documents the design and evaluation of an integrated online-learning pipeline developed within the AdCyDER project for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) cybersecurity. The pipeline couples a Reinforcement Learning (RL) attack classifier — which produces an attack-type probability distribution — with a Stackelberg game-theoretic (GT) defense selector that consumes those distributions alongside SME-encoded priors over (defense, attack) effectiveness pairings and perdefense costs to choose grid-health-preserving defenses. The objective is not attack classification per se but production of distributions that drive effective defense selection through the Stackelberg layer, learned from delayed grid-health feedback rather than labeled attack data. AdCyDER as a whole is broader than the work presented here; this report covers the specific RL/GT loop integration and its evaluation. We present the integrated pipeline (SCADA telemetry with Fronius inverter physics, Suricata IDS, time-windowed aggregation, per-facility LSTM classifier, Stackelberg optimizer, OpenC2 actuators), an experimental campaign of 28 eight-hour iterations across three baseline modes, and a pipeline-ordered diagnostic protocol. The protocol identifies two distinct failure modes within the loop: paired supervised ceilings on the same features establish that the deployed online RL classifier (macro F1 ≈ 0.07) sits at least 4.7× below a same-architecture supervised LSTM (≈ 0.34) and 10–11× below a linear feature-signal ceiling (≈ 0.70–0.79 depending on per-facility isolation), localizing the dominant failure to the training procedure; and the reward signal driving online updates carries weak directional coupling with classifier correctness in the methodology-expected direction (multi-lens convergent: top-decile P(true) records produce more frequent state changes and slightly larger improvements, top-vs-bot Cohen’s 𝑑 ≈ −0.19), but at effect magnitudes too small to drive gradient-based learning at the campaign sample size. The original learning hypothesis is not supported by the data. The primary contributions are the diagnostic methodology — proposed as a transferable falsification protocol for online RL/GT defense pipelines learning from delayed environmental reward — and the open, reproducible experimental infrastructure. We outline reward reformulation as the highest-priority aspirational next step given the underpowered-but-aligned Q6 reading, with hardware-in-the-loop evaluation as the broadest scope-expansion option.

Blakely, Benjamin [Argonne National Laboratory (AN

Cyber-Informed Engineering Power Generation Guide [Slides]

The CIE for Power Generation: Insights and Case Studies guide is being developed to assist engineers at utilities, asset owner-operators developers, and cybersecurity teams to build in robustness and cyber resiliency into their designs using cyber-informed engineering practices. This guide will break out these topics including use cases by chapters for areas such as Nuclear, IBRs, Geothermal, natural gas, etc.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING

Renewable Energy and Storage Cybersecurity Research (RESCue) Pilot Final Report

The Renewable Energy and Storage Cybersecurity Research (RESCue) project is a collaborative effort aimed at securing the rapidly growing deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) and transmission-connected hybrid renewable energy systems against escalating cyber threats. This project brings together major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of wind, solar, and energy storage, along with major asset owners and DOE National Laboratories, to collectively identify cyber threats, assess risks, and develop robust cybersecurity strategies and solutions. This publication the final report for the first year of the project.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION

Designing a Comprehensive IDS Strategy for a Zero Trust Architecture Environment

Zero Trust Architecture or ZTA is a cybersecurity model for enterprises to structure their networked resources around to maintain total security externally and internally. In a Zero Trust environment, no part of the network is considered "trustworthy" and thus should be scrutinized and monitored extensively as is done in traditional "Trust But Verify" schemes at the network's perimeter. In this way, Zero Trust Architecture is a superior model for securing access to networked resources at the enterprise level. Fermilab, in pursuit of a better security posture, has decided to embrace this model of architecture for its network. Attaining this goal requires tremendous infrastructural, policy, and procedural adjustments that will affect all the lab's personnel and resources.

D'Antonio, Lucas

Air Traffic Management Exploration

Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) is the overarching term for traffic management approaches and/or associated services that address the operation of select new entrants within flexibly allocated, designated airspace. xTM will leverage the decentralized UTM model for traffic management, creating cybersecurity challenges that are common and unique.

RAR

Land-Based Wind Reference Architecture

This report describes a summary and the final deliverables for the Wind Reference Architecture project funded by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Wind Energy Technology Office (WETO). The project objective was to further refine the reference architecture of the existing wind power plant reference architecture developed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) by expanding the wind turbine generator (WTG) into a separate individual wind turbine reference architecture. Additional details regarding the wind turbine system and how it integrates with a wind power plant were researched and reflected in the reference architecture. This addition is important because it allows researchers to understand the components and devices in a wind turbine, how they function and how a wind turbine integrates into a wind power plant to be able to perform cybersecurity evaluations on the system. The communication and control systems were the focus while developing this reference architecture to understand the cybersecurity posture of a wind turbine and power plant. The information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems perspective are integral in helping improve the cybersecurity posture by creating a starting point to study how wind energy can be safely designed and deployed in our power grid from an integrated systems standpoint. A holistic wind power plant and turbine reference architecture and simulation was developed and made open-sourced for further research efforts.

17 WIND ENERGY

Vulcan-Forge: Architecture and Design of a Multi-Modal Forensic Analysis Plugin for CALDERA

Forge and VULCAN together describe an open-architecture cybersecurity analysis ecosystem that unifies forensic artifact processing, detection engineering, and vulnerability intelligence within integrated platforms. Forge operates as a plugin for MITRE CALDERA, ingesting diverse evidence formats—including EVTX, PCAP/PCAPNG, CSV, JSON, YAML, XML, binaries, and archives—to construct a unified artifact graph enriched with severity scoring, TLP classification, and audit trails. It provides subsystems for artifact parsing, streaming structured-data visualization, NetworkMiner-based packet inspection, PE/.NET binary analysis, and LLM-assisted triage and rule generation, with outputs validated against CCCS-YARA and pySigma schemas. VULCAN complements this by serving as a cybersecurity analyst platform that integrates a Neo4j knowledge graph, Qdrant vector retrieval, SSVC-based triage, and a local LLM to deliver CVE intelligence and forensic analysis through a multi-source ingest pipeline drawing from NVD, CISA KEV, EPSS, MITRE ATT&CK, and CAPEC. Together, they bridge structured threat intelligence with automated forensic analysis and detection workflows.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING

Equipment Self-Assessment Guide Checklist

This Equipment Self-Assessment Checklist is designed for asset owners and operators (AOOs) responsible for the deployment, operation, maintenance, or cybersecurity oversight of grid systems and digital energy technologies. It provides a structured inspection checklist for evaluating the security, integrity, and operational trustworthiness of equipment across substations, generation sites, distributed energy resources (DERs), and control environments.

32 - ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZA

Quantum Technologies for UAS (QTech)

Harness the power of quantum technologies to assure the availability of UAS communications against disruptions. Make use of quantum computing (e.g. quantum optimization) and quantum communication (e.g. quantum key distribution) to address the availability cybersecurity challenge. Our approach is three-fold: (1) Utilize quantum optimization algorithms to design robust network with routing redundancy that can respond adaptively to dynamically changing real-time environment and disruptions, (2) Utilize quantum optimization algorithms resource allocation for detection, localization, and tracking of mobile communication disruption agents, (3) Utilize quantum key distribution (QKD) to execute secure key sharing in high data rate optical communication and/or anti-jamming protocols for secure RF communication.

Quantum Computing

Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) – Engineered Controls Database and Use

Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) addresses the reality that cyber-attacks on engineered systems can have consequences far beyond data loss or disruption of digital networks. When control systems are compromised, safety, reliability, and performance of the physical process itself may be threatened. This database is meant to establish clear examples and guidance for defining and applying engineered controls in CIE. It explains what engineered controls are, how they differ from information security measures, and how they are integrated into system design. The goal is to ensure that resilience is engineered into systems from the outset. Unlike cybersecurity protections that defend the digital layer, engineered controls act directly at the physical and algorithmic levels to guarantee that unacceptable consequences are prevented or limited. CIE keeps the consequences of a cyber attack from impacting the safety, reliability, and performance of engineered systems.

42 - ENGINEERING

Edge ML for CAN bus intrusion detection in AVs

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are revolutionizing transportation, but their reliance on interconnected cyber-physical systems exposes them to unprecedented cybersecurity risks. This study addresses the critical challenge of detecting real-time cyber intrusions in self-driving vehicles by leveraging a dataset from the Udacity self-driving car project. We simulate four high-impact attack vectors, Denial of Service (DoS), spoofing, replay, and fuzzy attacks, by injecting noise into spatial features (e.g., bounding box coordinates) to replicate adversarial scenarios. We develop and evaluate two lightweight neural network architectures (NN-1 and NN-2) alongside a logistic regression baseline (LG-1) for intrusion detection. The models achieve exceptional performance, with NN-2 attaining an AUC score of 93.15% and 93.15% accuracy, demonstrating their suitability for edge deployment in AV environments. Through explainable AI techniques, we uncover unique forensic fingerprints of each attack type, such as spatial corruption in fuzzy attacks and temporal anomalies in replay attacks, offering actionable insights for feature engineering and proactive defense. Visual analytics, including confusion matrices, ROC curves, and feature importance plots, validate the models' robustness and interpretability. This research sets a new benchmark for AV cybersecurity, delivering a scalable, field-ready toolkit for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and policymakers. By aligning intrusion fingerprints with SAE J3061 automotive security standards, we provide a pathway for integrating machine learning into safety-critical AV systems. Our findings underscore the urgent need for security-by-design AI, ensuring that AVs not only drive autonomously but also defend autonomously. This work bridges the gap between theoretical cybersecurity and life-preserving engineering, offering a leap toward safer, more secure autonomous transportation.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING

Cybersecurity for the Operational Technology Environment (CyOTE) (Final Technical Report)

Electric grids have historically been susceptible to both physical attacks and environmental hazards but the implementation of smart grids, remote management, and self-healing networks, has now made the grid vulnerable to cyber attacks. To address risks introduced by routable connectivity, utilities must establish dynamic solutions to identify, protect, detect, respond to, and recover from cyber security threats and vulnerabilities. In response to the evolving threat landscape U.S. Department of Energy-Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (DOE CESER) initiated the Cybersecurity for the OT Environment (CyOTE) pilot program, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) effort designed to leverage U.S. intelligence capabilities to prevent, detect, or mitigate a cyber attack on utility operational technology (OT) networks. As part of the CyOTE pilot, The Southern Company (Southern Company or Southern) researched, evaluated and deployed emerging Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) technologies and cyber security monitoring architectures to provide previously unrealized network visibility and situational awareness through deep packet inspection and data analytics. This Final Scientific/Technical Report documents the objectives, methodology, lessons learned, and results of Southern Company’s participation in the CyOTE pilot from December 2018 to September 2023.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION

Bayesian Attack Model (BAM)

The Bayesian Attack Model (BAM) is an analytical tool designed to enhance the comprehension of adversarial activity in OT environments. BAM leverages both expert cybersecurity insights and historical data to characterize the likelihood of adversarial behavior given anomalous observable events.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS

Enabling Secure and Resilient XFC: A Software/Hardware-Security Co-Design Approach

Extremely fast charging (XFC) has the potential to reduce the charging time of battery electric vehicles (BEV) to be equivalent to the filling time of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV), thus eliminating one of the few advantages ICEV still poses for light- and heavy-duty vehicles. Enabling XFC will, however, require coordination and cooperation between the grid, charging stations, and the vehicles themselves, which leads to an inevitable increase in the attack surface for all systems combined. In securing the overall system, we must not only embrace traditional cybersecurity, which is chiefly concerned with communications and the operation of digital systems, but also cyber-physical systems security as the proper operation of XFC is critically dependent on systems’ abilities to know about (sense) and interact with (actuate) the physical world. The project team consists of academic and industry researchers with backgrounds in cybersecurity, cyber-physical systems security, learning in adversarial environments, transportation security, grid security and resilience, wireless power transfer, converter design, and battery management systems.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS

Gateway Implementation of Cybersecurity Requirements

Cybersecurity threats are a constant present-day reality for any type of business -- Space exploration is not excluded from these threats either. The Gateway Program is one of NASA’s latest initiatives that extend space exploration beyond low earth orbit. Gateway allows for NASA to prove technologies and mature systems necessary to live and work on another celestial body before embarking on multi-year missions to Mars. The Gateway is a small, human-tended space station in orbit around the Moon. With the increased autonomy, distance and criticality of systems, cybersecurity is a critical discipline that touches and integrates with most if not all subsystems of the Gateway. Building a gateway to the lunar orbit is no simple task. In this presentation, we outline an approach that the Gateway team adopted in creating a cyber safe and robust vehicle to support operations and assure protection of the critical functions. Gateway Program is required to implement National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines to adhere to the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA). NIST provides a framework for managing and controlling cybersecurity risks by defining cybersecurity controls and methodologies for implementation. The NIST framework is based upon the system, data within the system, integrations with external systems, and risk assessments to determine impacts for each of those systems. The goals and objectives are to identify appropriate security controls that fulfil and map to the NIST 800-53 framework. The implementation process involves developing an organizational understanding to manage cybersecurity risk to systems, people, assets, data, and capabilities. NIST Security controls are interpreted and defined within the Gateway vehicle requirements subsystems specifications. This paper details the approach, implementation, and challenges faced during the development and design phases to address cyber threats during the Gateway vehicle operations.

Cybersecurity

Engineering Controls Database

Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) addresses the reality that cyber attacks on engineered systems can have consequences far beyond data loss or disruption of digital networks. When control systems are compromised, safety, reliability, and performance of the physical process itself may be threatened. This database is meant to establish clear examples and guidance for defining and applying engineered controls in CIE. It explains what engineered controls are, how they differ from information security measures, and how they are integrated into system design. The goal is to ensure that resilience is engineered into systems from the outset. Unlike cybersecurity protections that defend the digital layer, engineered controls act directly at the physical and algorithmic levels to guarantee that unacceptable consequences are prevented or limited. CIE keeps the consequences of a cyber attack from impacting the safety, reliability, and performance of engineered systems.

Source record

Bayesian Attack Model (BAM) User Story

This document presents a user story for the Bayesian Attack Model (BAM) tool designed to aggregate and analyze cyber-attack observables for operational technology (OT) systems. BAM aims to empower cybersecurity analysts by providing a streamlined interface for collecting observable data from various sources, enabling real-time analysis of potential adversary activity. By enhancing the response capabilities of security teams, BAM facilitates risk-informed decision-making and improves organizational security posture. This user story outlines the key functionalities, user interactions, and requirements necessary to successfully integrate BAM with other security information and event management (SIEM) technology and cybersecurity operations centers (CSOCs).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING