Transportation and Power Grid in Smart Cities

19 Cyber‐Security and Resiliency of Transportation and Power Systems in Smart Cities

Seyedamirabbas Mousavian¹, Melike Erol‐Kantarci² and Hussein T. Mouftah²

¹ School of Business, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA

² School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada

19.1 Introduction

A recent report from the University of Cambridge, Centre for Risk Studies and the Lloyd's of London insurance market discusses a severe attack scenario that is capable of leaving 9.3 million people in New York City and Washington, DC, without power, causing $1 trillion loss in the U.S. economy and in Lloyd's (2015). According to FireEye Inc.'s attack map in Fireeye (2012), globally over 25,000 attacks are detected in a day, and among these attacks, the energy sector is the third‐top targeted industry. Again, according to IOActive Lab's report by Cerrudu (2015), smart cities are open to cyberattacks, as well.

A cyberattack can be launched from any component of the power and electric transportation system (PETS) including a meter, phasor measurement unit (PMU), electric vehicle, or a relay. An infectious attack can propagate further in PETS and infect critical components, utility computers, and system operator servers. Considering the vast number of connected devices in the electric power system, the attack can affect a large number of devices. Hence, numerous automation and communication devices are used to measure, monitor, and control ...