Dive Summary:
- In an interview with Computing, David Green, business development director at SmartReach, explains how to concurrently connect an entire power grid and beef up cybersecurity.
- While Green admits the smart grid can be vulnerable to frauds, hacks and attacks, he emphasizes the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.
- Green spotlights data encryption, penetration testing and grid design as three important steps to ensure cybersecurity; he also suggests it's far easier to prevent attacks when designing a new communications network with cybersecurity in mind rather than trying to upgrade and secure an old one.
From the article:
"... But IT industry insiders are concerned by the potential security risks smart meters present. Unscrupulous consumers could commit fraud by manipulating the data captured by the meter, or a hacker could compromise a smart meter to find out about a home owners' peaks of use to learn when they are likely to be out. More worryingly, smart meters are connected to smart grids, meaning that if someone is able to attack the system, they could impact the load balancing for energy supply on the whole grid, which may bring down part or all of the system.
However, David Green, business development director of SmartReach, a consortium of companies including BAE Detica, BT, Sensus and Arqiva, believes the system is secure, and there is no chance that they can be hacked. ..."