TODAY’S successful smart grids have become comprehensive internet of things (IoT) networks with millions of connected meters that share massive real time data about people, businesses and energy consumption.
The valuable insight they provide enables consumers to save on energy bills and utilities and energy players to better balance supply and demand. It is also crucial information to help integrate renewable energy sources, helping to improve sustainability.
As the marketplace and number of connections continues to expand by an estimated 30% each year, so does the potential for cyberattacks. The motivations for hacking this critical infrastructure include energy consumption fraud, insight into households’ activity, grid instability, pressure on governments and ID theft.
This makes digital security more important than ever to an efficient grid´s success.
Against this background, Gemalto claims that its dedicated cybersecurity solution for electric utilities establishes end-to-end security between energy meters, data concentrators and energy companies’ back-end systems.
“Rugged and reliable IoT connectivity modules ensure 24/7 data availability. A strong and unique digital identity system is implemented at the manufacturing stage to ensure devices and applications can strongly authenticate themselves, proving their legitimacy to access sensitive data. Leading-edge encryption technology safeguards against data tampering and strong security lifecycle management enables remote security and data access updates, without costly truck rolls,” the company said in a statement. “The smart energy ecosystem is one of the most advanced in terms of security requirements because of the potentially disastrous consequences of malicious hacking,” said Sherry Zameer, the company’s Senior Vice President: IoT Solutions, CIS, Middle East and Africa region.
“The Gemalto cybersecurity solution for Utilities ensures the integrity and confidentiality of smart meter data while defending against hacking and emerging threats that are typical to this business.”