DARPA’s RADICS develops Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation and Characterization Systems for cyber attacks on power grids

Across the United States, 3200 separate organizations own and operate electrical infrastructure. The widely dispersed nature of the nation’s electrical grid and associated control systems has a number of advantages, including a reduced risk that any single accident or attack could create a widespread failure from which it might take weeks to recover. Since the late 1990’s, however, cost pressures have driven the integration of conventional information technologies into these independent industrial control systems, resulting in a grid that is increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attack, either through direct connection to the Internet or via direct interfaces to utility IT systems.