Rising Substation Attacks Demand Innovative Security Solutions

By: Megan Happel, Technical Writer, POWER Engineers 

Substations today face a multitude of threats ranging from severe weather events to malicious attacks. 

Physical breach events—defined here as physical attacks, vandalism, theft and suspicious activity—accounted for less than a quarter of all electric disturbance events reported to the United States Department of Energy in 2021. By 2023, that number had risen to account for more than half of the year’s reports. Unfortunately, this disturbing trend is expected to continue in the coming years. 

The industry is already experiencing several significant consequences due to this rise in physical attacks. Utilities are seeing higher operational costs because of increased expenses to repair and replace damaged, stolen or vandalized equipment as well as an increased requirement to investment in enhanced security measures. There is also an increased potential for widespread power outages with longer restoration times, which can damage utility reputations and result in economic losses for businesses that rely on a stable power supply. Damaged electrical equipment is also a huge safety concern, posing a greater risk of injuries or fatalities among utility workers responding to attack-related incidents. 

“I’ve been talking to a lot of physical security specialists and subspecialists,” says Jason Pfaff, Chief Innovation Officer at POWER Engineers, “and this is a trend that they’re extremely worried about. People having detailed knowledge of our energy grid and being more coordinated in attacks is something that really, really concerns the industry.” 

Attacks are getting more sophisticated and more frequent. With emerging technologies making new avenues of attack more attainable, the old methods of fortification just aren’t cutting it anymore. 

“Time and time again, traditional methods of physical security analysis are proving to be inaccurate or ineffective against modern threats,” says Chris Ott, Physical Security Expert at POWER Engineers. “The technology is changing, and solutions that worked a few years ago are no longer sufficient. Utilities need to continuously adapt their security strategies to counter new methods of attack.” 

“Currently, our biggest problem in security is that we’re always one step behind,” Pfaff says. The security process is often reactionary, and threats are often not known until after they are seen in action. This makes the speed and frequency of security analyses and implementations critical to grid reliability. 

Additionally, the technology on which security decisions are based is also changing rapidly. There are constant opportunities to make mitigations more accurate, more cost effective and more comprehensive if you know where to look.  

“While addressing the growing security challenges faced by our clients, we realized there was a significant need for high-quality, comprehensive, science-backed analysis. From that idea, our technology-enabled tool Meerkat™ started to take shape,” says Ott. “Traditional methods of security analysis rely too heavily on subjective human perspectives. Your results are only as good as your expert, and many locations we see still have vulnerabilities even after lengthy security upgrade processes. Those gaps then need to be dealt with using some sort of risk-based profile. Meerkat™ uses an input of high-quality, accurate data to facilitate more comprehensive analyses in a fraction of the time.” 

Imagine being able to see exactly where critical assets are vulnerable as well as how effectively different security solutions mitigate those vulnerabilities at your substation. Now imagine being able to incorporate high-confidence security plans into your designs before construction even begins. Meerkat™ offers exactly that. In real time, our clients can collaborate with our expert physical security and engineering teams to explore every mitigation option at their disposal, as well as how those options fit within their budgets and existing systems. POWER Engineers creates a highly accurate interactive model of each study area in order to deliver the fastest, most comprehensive and most cost-conscious solutions available in the current market. 

“Physical substation attacks are a very real problem,” says Ott, “and adequate security measures are important for more than just the sites that are identified by the Critical Infrastructure Protection standards for mandatory security upgrades and audits. It’s time to get a step ahead of bad actors by taking away their power to take away ours.” 

Interested in learning more about Meerkat™? Request a demonstration from POWER’s team of experts.