Thesis supervisor: János Csatár
Location of studies (in Hungarian): Department of Electric Power Engineering Abbreviation of location of studies: VET
Description of the research topic:
'The cyberattack targeting Ukraine’s power grid in 2015 have raised awareness of critical infrastructure potential weaknesses, especially cybersecurity. Similar events have happened and will happen to power grids; the ever-increasing digitization, dependency on communication makes it ever-more likely.
Digital substation concept is one of the foundations of future power systems. Although current research focus on this concept, but it is already being showcased via pilot-projects with extensive communication infrastructure and IEC 61850 compatible devices. One example is the ongoing project FITNESS, started in 2016. The new standards, new concepts create new challenges in cybersecurity.
The candidate seeks – among others – the answers to these questions:
• Which are the critical parts of a digital substations from cybersecurity point of view? – Are there alternative ways that inherently reduces the threat?
• What limitations do we face in a substation environment when we try to use more advanced cybersecurity tools? (For example: deep packet inspection, next-gen firewall)
• What distinctive trait do substation devices and protocols have?
• How can domain knowledge can help detecting and mitigating cyber threats?
The research task includes analyzing the state-of-the-art from the viewpoint of the above-mentioned questions, searching for new vulnerabilities and suggesting new mitigation strategies. A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) laboratory with cosimulation capabilities is available for experimenting with new ideas.
Required language skills: English Number of students who can be accepted: 2
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