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Subject: Fwd: [smartgrid-discuss] Senate Hearings on Smart Grid - Cyber Security


forwarding messge to proper list - please note smartgrid-discuss is about to be closed. Please adjust your email address books accordingly.

Thanks!

Mary

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Benjamin A. Rolfe <ben@blindcreek.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 1:10 PM
Subject: Re: [smartgrid-discuss] Senate Hearings on Smart Grid - Cyber Security
To: Smartgrid Discussion List <smartgrid-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org>


Good observations and a couple good points. 
 
Developing consensus standards of high quality takes time. 9 to 12 months to get to a workable draft is very aggressive, with 2 years to get to final draft still pretty optimistic.  We can think generally of the process in stages:
1. Establish need and scope (concept validation)
2. Develop technical approaches and consensus leading to a draft standard
3. Validation of the draft standard within the SDO
4. Final Approval (which usually involves approval by people not involved in development of the draft standard)
 
Very often vendors take the risk of implementing draft standards during the third phase (while the standard is still being vetted inside the SDO) once it looks as though it is fairly stable. This can have mixed results, and in several examples in my experience, the overall process of both standard completion and market adoption is actually lengthened considerably when this is done (if different vendors interpret drafts differently when there are still missing bits, and thus produce non-interoperable solutions, the market sours on the technology and it can take a while to get over it).  Other times it works fine. Deciding when the risk is reasonable takes a lot of experience, in depth knowledge of the standard, the process by which it was drafted, good timing and a bit of luck (though as a famous golfer once said, the more I practice, the luckier I seem to get ;-).
 
Sometimes if the standard is drafted too quickly the overall time to adoption is actually longer, like many things. IMO the primary purpose (only purpose?) of standards is to achieve interoperability, and strong emphasize of this over all other goals during the drafting process seems to help; it may take a bit more time up front but like so many things if spent well that time pays back quickly with an overall shorter time to reaching the goals.
 
Another trade-off is that the wider the participation, the better the standard, but the more participants the longer it takes to reach a true consensus.  The term 'consensus can mean different things to different people, even when operating in the same SDO with the same rules. It may mean we combine ideas and find a workable merged approach, or it might mean I can get more votes than you so I win (and many shades between).   I'll agree with Joe that funding can help broaden participation (I sure wouldn't mind it ;0), but other outside pressures can actually stifle the process.  When consensus is forced both quality and schedule can suffer.  
 
One way to accelerate the process is when the SDO task group has a very well defined and focused scope. This tends to narrow down the options and lead to some obvious 'good enough' points rapidly.   The better we understand the problem to be solved, the easier that is. The flip side of that is that in many cases what we think we know becomes obsolete knowledge rapidly, and the problem we think we're solving changes by the time we're done; too narrow a view leads to irrelevance. 
 
A recurring theme in SG discussions seems to be a fixation on how things have always been done. I think we need to think beyond traditional models, because communications technology is an enabler of new ways to do things.  I believe technology will alter the barriers and balances to new architectures, for example, distributed generation and local storage will become viable in places it hasn't been so far, and will completely change the game. The work on SG, mostly based on what we know to be the rules of the game are today, will be a catalyst that will change the rules completely. So how hard can it be to characterize that problem? 
 
Just some things to think about as we try to maintain useful perspective.
-Ben
From: Joe Weiss
To: Smartgrid Discussion List
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2009 6:48 PM
Subject: [smartgrid-discuss] Senate Hearings on Smart Grid - Cyber Security

I had an opportunity to listen to the Smart Grid Hearings held March 3 with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. NIST Director, Pat Gallagher, DOE’s Pat Hoffman, FERC Commissioner Kelly, Commissioner Butler of NARUC, Katherine Hamilton of the GridWise Alliance, Edward Lu of Google, and Evan Gaddis of NEMA testified.

 

I was obviously interested in what was being said about cyber security and will focus on that.  It was gratifying to see that many presenters and Senators recognized the importance of cyber security. My observations were:

-  FERC Commissioner Suedeen Kelly stated that NIST Standards were “good enough” for the Smart Grid. If they are good enough for the Smart Grid and for all federal agencies including federal utilities such as TVA, BPA, and WAPA, they should certainly be good enough for the NERC CIPs. She also made the connection between security and reliability which I thought was right on. She went on to state the need to coordinate ac ross “people” boundaries – FERC (transmission) and NARUC (distribution). Hopefully, that same approach will be applied to the security of the equipment where the CIPs currently exclude distribution.

- Senator Dorgan from North Dakota mentioned there should be demonstration projects for cyber – again, right on!

- Senators Murkowsky and Cantwell discussed the need for Internet Protocols (IP) for the Smart Grid which is specifically included in the Stimulus Bill. That leads to the question of why, if IP is good for Smart Grid applications, have many utilities been removing IP connections from “non-Smart Grid” transmission applications? Unfortunately, the answer is obvious - to avoid having to comply with the NERC CIPs by using the loophole of having to only address routable protocols.

- Based on the discussions and written testimony (as well as experience with the NERC CIPs), there is a substantial need for developing good, useable metrics for really measuring security (see previous blog on compliance vs security).  This is even more important for the Smart Grid which transcends Transmission and Distribution (T&D) where the CIPS only partially apply.

 

Other non-security observations:

- The focus of the Smart Grid was on T&D and customers and not on power generation. Consequently, there was no mention of ISA or process controls in the prepared testimony, presentations, or question/answer sessions.

- NEMA mentioned that consensus standards can be developed in 9-12 months. That is VERY optimistic. Generally, consensus standards take several years to develop and get approved. Consensus standards organizations are also voluntary. Attempting to speed up the development process may take outside funding to “modify” the voluntary process.

 

Joe Weiss

 





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Mary P McRae
Manager of TC Administration, OASIS
mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org
voip: 603.232.9090



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