Attacking Power Grid Substations: An Experiment Demonstrating How to Attack the SCADA Protocol IEC 60870-5-104

Abstract

Smart grid brings various advantages such as increased automation in decision making, tighter coupling between production and consumption, and increased digitalization. Because of the many changes that the smart grid inflicts on the power grid as critical infrastructure, cyber security and robust resilience against cyberattacks are essential to handle. With an increased number of attack interfaces and more use of IP-enabled communication, digital stations or IEC 61850 substations need to operate according to a zero-trust security model. Cyber resilience needs to be an integrated part of the substation and its components. This paper presents an experiment utilizing a Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) Digital Station environment (enclave), where the focus is on attacking the SCADA protocol IEC 60870-5-104. We implemented 14 attacks, the attacks are described in detail, including the result of each attack action. Furthermore, the paper discusses the implications of the findings in the experiment and what power grid asset owners can do to protect their substations as part of their digitizing efforts.