| The
October 24, 1997 outage incident in San Francisco, California,
U.S., should serve as a wake up call to the electric utility
industry. The incident, which caused an outage for thousands
in the San Francisco area, occurred when a knowledgeable
individual gained access to one of Pacific Gas &
Electric's (PG&E) critical downtown substations and
manually turned 39 control valves. Since this substation was a
"secure" site, apparently the perpetrator was someone with
authorized access to the facility.
Upon first hearing
this news, I was discouraged to learn that about 75 sets of
keys had been issued to company personnel by PG&E.
However, upon researching other utilities, I found that, if
anything, PG&E has fewer sets of substation access keys
outstanding than do many other large utilities (first graph).
One official at an un-named utility indicated that literally
hundreds of individuals (employees and contractors) have been
issued keys to critical substations. Worse, no accurate
records have been kept on who has been issued a key. Sixty
percent of the utilities surveyed do not even maintain
rudimentary facility access logs.
The PG&E
incident and these subsequent findings demonstrate the need
for utilities to invest in physical security for their power
plants, substations, T&D structures, power cables, lines,
feeders and other assets.
I hope your
utility's data and site security is in better shape than that
of utilities we recently surveyed about substation access. The
findings summarized in the accompanying bar chart are
discouraging, but not totally unexpected. They reveal
significant shortcomings in physical security measures in
utility infrastructure.
So what can be done in the short term to beef up physical security?
First, utilities must agree that improvements in access safeguards to
critical sites—such as plants and substations—are top priority.
Sixty-three percent of the people surveyed thought security efforts at
utilities were below the level required. 
Next a utility has
to determine the best approach for securing individual
substations and other sites. Whether legitimate access is
provided by coded smart-card, electronic access controls,
voice/fingerprint/eye print recognition, or remote open/close
capability from the operations control center, something more
substantial than a padlock and key is now required. In some
utilities, the control center or security operations center
may consider development of a "SCADA-like" monitoring
capability for centralized access logging and control of
critical substations and power plants. For local control
applications, an Oregon-based company, Supra Products, Inc.,
has developed what appears to be one workable solution. The
company recently introduced an electronic access control
subsystem based on smart-key, smart-padlock technology.
In addition to
managing authorized access to sites with certain limitations,
expirations, logs, and other records, prevention of
unauthorized access is another aspect of the security program.
Basic preventive measures such as surveillance cameras, higher
and stronger fences, disguised buildings (where feasible),
audible alarms and the like should be a starting point for
improving defensive measures. Today, we are on the threshold
of being able to provide options such as infra-red sensor
detection, which can provide thermal signatures and
point-of-violation location information about any would-be
trespasser.
While these
heretofore low visibility incidents of vandalism and outright
security lapses are occurring, many utilities are developing
new business units offering home security monitoring services
while their own physical plant begs for security monitoring.
Talk about an oxymoron: this is like the shoemaker's children
going without shoes.
Next month, I will
continue with this security discussion, but I will focus on
information security safeguards.
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