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In this following project, it is required to provide an overview on how to check the power grid system for whether it is backed by a hacker or not. The intrusion checking process is required to be mentioned in this project. The utility equipment for getting access to the power grid will also be evaluated properly. A strategy to prevent data beaching is required to be discussed in this project. Critical infrastructure is required to prevent data breaching activity in the power grid system. This system will accurately describe the incidence of data breaches in the electrical power grid system. This research will thoroughly assess the flaws in the electrical power grid's security system. This research thoroughly evaluates all remedial ways to prevent data beaching behavior in the electrical power system. The data recovery method is also thoroughly covered to reduce the risk of data breaches.
Discussion
Incident analysis
A red team security consultant is an ethical hacking company. Red team is one of the famous academies for cyber security (Albeshri and Thayananthan, 2018). A Midwest power provider engaged Red Team, a security firm composed of white malevolent hackers known as ethical hackers, to examine its defenses. The group of Red Team security agencies observed the power grid for three days as they sought to breach into facilities and hack into networks to acquire unfettered access or unwanted data access. And it was a lot simpler which is beyond the expectation. According to the following research, it appears that in the case of a cyber-attack, electricity companies must step up their game, or else the lights will go out.
Power grid systems are used to produce electricity. They are one of the important aspects of society as they provide electricity to the city. The hospitals, banks use the electricity which is provided by the power grid (Saleem and Naveed, 2020). The electrical utility company or the power grid company is facing several kinds of unusual activity or data hacking in recent times. The personal documents of some employees have been hacked recently. The system of the electrical company as well as their database of employees and others are being hacked which is a sign of data breaching.
The IDS which is also known as the intrusion detection system and this is used to detect suspicious activity in a network system. The intrusion detection system is used to monitor the traffic of the networks. The following system is used to detect any malicious activity and generate an alarm when any malicious activity is detected in any network system. This is one kind of software that is used to prevent the activity of data beaching (Shamsi and Khojaye, 2018). The intrusion detection system makes a scan of the overall system to check if there is any malware device present in the system of the electrical power supply devices. The intrusion detection system has its signatures. The following signatures prevent the presence of the malware device in a system. The IDS detects the outbound and the inbound traffic of the network to detect abnormal or malicious activity in the electrical power grids system. Once the detection of the presence of the abnormal activity is done, the intrusion signatures analyze the outbound and inbound network traffic. The system files are compared against the signatures of the malware activities. This comparison is completed through a process of scanning. The process of scanning helps to detect malicious signals (Trang, 2017). The intrusion signature detects the harmful pattern which is present in the system of the electrical power grid. Once, the data breaching activity is detected, the intrusion detection system raises an alarm to the system analysis department of the electrical system. The authority of the power grid system became alert about that situation. There is a security operation centre or the SOC in the intrusion detection system which is used to recognize suspicious activity in the power system. The events related to security logs are predicted worthy of the help of intrusion detection systems. The damages are blocked by the use of the intrusion detection system. The attempts of data breaching will be effectively reported by the intrusion detection system.
The signature-based intrusion detection system is very much effective in predicting the presence of malware activities with the help of several known signatures which are previously installed in the software application (Dion and Smith, 2019). The prediction is done with the help of machine learning. Signature-based intrusion detection is more conventional and perhaps recognizable, whereas anomaly-based intrusion detection makes use of the capabilities of machine learning. This acts as antivirus software. The intrusion detection system or the IDS which is Signature-based is based on a preprogrammed set of identified threat characteristics. These acts will set off the alarm. These signatures can include virus-infected email message lines and files, remote usernames and passwords that violate company policies, and certain byte sequences (Onik et al, 2018). It is analogous to antivirus software. Signature-based intrusion detection is effective and popular, but this is only as effective as its signature database.
Determining weakness
As a result, it is vulnerable to new assaults. Furthermore, hackers could and frequently do alter their assaults to prevent the detection of conventional signatures. Furthermore, the most comprehensive signature-based Intrusion detection system would have huge amounts of data to scan against, implying high bandwidth needs on the system (Talesh, 2018).
To mitigate these problems, it is required to use the intrusion prevention system. An IPS or intrusion prevention system is a tool or software which is used to take action against the malware system or the data beaching activities. IDS or the intrusion detection system just generates notifications for prospective attacks, whereas IPS or the intrusion p[revention system can take action against the data breaching activity. Also, because IDS is not integrated, traffic does not have to pass through this one. However, traffic must pass via the intrusion prevention system. Furthermore, false alarms for IDS will simply result in notifications, but false alarms for IPS may result in the loss of critical data or services. An intrusion prevention system is a robust strategy of information technology that will be able to prevent data breaching activity in the power supply system (Awaisi et al, 2020). This is one kind of data breaching prevention technique that will effectively mitigate the damage which is done by the data breaching activity and provide protection to the overall network.
The network-based intrusion system is based on the signatures of the IDS system which can cover all the aspects and the activity of the network (Chatterjee, 2019). The data is pre-installed by the vendor of the software. IPs do not require a training session instead of that the programming is previously installed by the manufacturer of the software.
To mitigate the data breaching in the electrical power generation system, it is required to use the wireless technology of the data prevention system. There are two phases in the wireless data prevention system. First, the overlay monitoring process is done. The monitoring process is monitoring the radio frequency near the point of access of the power grid system. This is called hybrid monitoring or the integrated monitoring process (Sauerwein et al, 2018). The needs of information technology professionals can be met by intrusion detection software.
First, the social engineering department of Red Team Company used their undercover agents to gather more information about the power grid electric system such as the security things, number of cameras and the other necessary details which were required before the process of data breaching (Li et al, 2018). The hacking team of the company was easily able to hack the power grid company or the electrical power supply company in just a few days. Once, all the data survey is done, and then the security team sets their target in the office of the power grid system. Then they enter the power grid as the local ISP technicians. They also arranged visitor cards from the reception. The hacking team of Red Team is separated into two parts at the time of entering into the power grid system. The hacking team used a shove IT tool to break the locking system of the door in just a few seconds. Forest, they checked which doors were closed. Then they used the shove IT tool to break the door. Then they set up the malware to hack the power grid system. Then they shack the server room with the help of the malware. Then they hacked the power substation (Sauerwein et al, 2019). The power substation had 2 motor sensors and a camera. They utilized a drone camera to check the security measures of the power substation. There is also an infrared system to detect body heat. They used a woolen blanket to avoid the body heat detection sensor. Then they reached the blind spot of the power substation. They used a shove IT tool to unlock all the doors. In the power grid substation, they used cloned ID badges with a Reid reader which is hidden. Then they installed the special thumb drives in the systems or the computers of the power grid substation (Albakri et al, 2018). In this way, data breaching in the power grid substation will be mitigated by the Red Team company.
Cryptography is the process of the security technique of communication. In this process, the sender and the receiver of the message get the message without any data breaching. In this process, data is secured with the help of data encryption or with the help of a security key (Colicchia et al, 2018). The receivers of the data are required to provide the secret key to open the message. Data encryption technique is a type of security technology in which information is encoded or encrypted and might only be viewed or decrypted or decoded by a user who has the appropriate key of encryption. Encrypted information, also called cipher text, seems illegible or jumbled to entities or anybody who gains unauthorized access. By encrypting the information of a communication or document, encryption improves the security of the data (Aldawood et al, 2018). The proper key is required to encrypt a document, and also need the correct key to decode the information. This is the most successful approach of concealing communication using encoded data, in which both the recipient and the sender have the secret code to decrypt data. To protect the power grid system, it is required to implement the process of the endpoint protection technique. In the technique of endpoint protection, a complete endpoint solution would utilize the process of data encryption to minimize data leakage and information loss, as well as enforce uniform information security policies throughout the servers of the power grid system, endpoints and networks, lowering the chance of a data breach (Conti et al, 2018). The process of data encryption converts the information into unreadable text. This process is called the cipher text process. The users of the data system are only able to read the data. The encrypted data is required to be decrypted by the other party before reading the message with the help of a security key. In the process of data encryption, a proper key is required to decrypt the message. The data encryption process can provide data security in the essential data of the power grid system. In this process, the data of the power grid systems will get data security. In this process, the data will remain protected (Broeders et al, 2021).
Remediation
There are two kinds of data encryption such as, symmetric data encryption and asymmetric data encryption. In the symmetric data encryption process, the sender and the receiver of the data get the same secret key. In asymmetric data encryption, the sender and the receiver will have different security keys. Data encryption is an ideal logic of encrypting a huge amount of information stored in the power grid system. The electricity in the power grid system is used by the hospital and in the city. So, it is very important to provide security in the power grids so that no one can be able to breach the data. A secure system should ensure the confidentiality of data, the integrity of data, and availability of data, as well as non-repudiation and data authenticity. Cryptography, when applied effectively, can assist to give these guarantees. Cryptography can guarantee the integrity and confidentiality of data both in rest and in transit (Boiko et al, 2019). It may also be used to verify transmission and reception and defend against data repudiation.
There are several steps to protect the data from a data breach. The steps to protect the data breaching is as follows:
Asset inventory: The process of asset inventory will help to generate the ratings and the category of the data breaching in the system of the electrical power grid. A clear picture of the software and hardware assets in the physical and network infrastructure of the electrical power grid system can help you better understand the security posture of the electrical power grid system. An asset assessment may be used to create ratings and categories for vulnerabilities and risks that the assets of the electric power system may face. Ratings and categories for these risks of data breaching might assist the system in properly prioritizing the corrective steps that will be undertaken on the following resources. Endpoint security is becoming increasingly important as a result of data breaches. Antivirus software alone will not prevent a catastrophic data leak. In reality, relying solely on the technique of anti-virus protection leaves the endpoints, such as desktops and tablets, and the other system vulnerable. The laptops and computers can serve as a primary entry point for intrusions. A complete endpoint solution will utilize encryption to minimize data leakage and loss, as well as enforce uniform policies of data security across all of the servers, endpoints and networks, lowering the chance of a security breach.
Compliance and vulnerability management: Using a compliance and vulnerability management or VCM solution, or at very minimum performing a vulnerability analysis process, will assist in the process of identifying gaps, security and flaws and mis-configurations in both virtual and physical environments. VCM can keep monitoring the infrastructure of the power grid system and information technology system assets for compliance and vulnerabilities flaws, and best practices in setup. The following process will help to mitigate the risk of data breaching by recognizing the risks of security vulnerability. A proper vulnerability management system will allow the data system of the electrical power grid to chalk out an appropriate plan of action to prevent the data vulnerability in the electrical power grid system. It is required to provide a basic knowledge of vulnerability management to the employees of the electrical power grid system to increase the awareness of data breaching in the electrical power grid system.
Security posture and regular audit: Regular audit will help to recognize the security gap in the data system of the electrical power grid. Regular audits will aid in assessing the security posture of the electrical power supply grid by identifying any new weaknesses in governance or compliance. In comparison to risk assessments or vulnerability scanning, a security audit will provide a more detailed examination of current security procedures. A vulnerability assessment takes into account the business's dynamic character and how well the organization can manage data security. It is required to educate all the technical staff of the electrical power grid system about the data beaching activity to make them aware of the techniques of data beaching. Proper security training will provide a clear idea about several phishing attacks and ransom ware. Employees must also be educated on the many sorts of contemporary phishing scams. Is this explained in the ransom ware, the most normal method for malware to propagate within the electrical power grid system is through phishing! It is required to educate the employees about the attack of phishing emails to prevent the system from data breaching or data hacking. Several operations might be used to prevent the activity of data breaching.
Recovery
Several steps are required for data recovery in the practice of data breaching. The steps are as follows:
Physical action is required to prevent the important papers and the important access.
A proper data breaching plan is required to develop. This is part of social engineering. It is required to prevent phishing attacks from fraudulent email addresses to safeguard the system of the electrical power grid.
It is required to protect sensitive data from data breaching with the help of data encryption techniques such as intrusion prevention techniques and the end-to-end data encryption process.
It is required to monitor the network access of the power grid system properly.
All the endpoints are required to be secured to prevent data breaching activity.
The security posters from all the vendors of the software of the electrical power grid system are required to monitor properly.
It is required to implement password protection for all the employees in the electrical power grid system to stop the negative effect of data breaching. All the employees must have a unique password. These passwords will help them to open the system.
A unique HR data framework is developed to the specific needs, but if the IT staff is unable to keep it serviced and stay updated, one may wind up with a solution that does not adapt with the workplace or team's demands. A virtualized HCM solution secures HR data and allows for comparable data updates among all areas of personnel administration. Instead than using different techniques to monitor payroll, insurance, and other HR functions, one can handle it all with a single unified platform.
Conclusion
According to the analysis below, it appears that in the event of a cyber assault, electrical firms should step up their efforts or the lights would go out. In this assignment, an outline is presented of how to verify the power grid system to see whether it has been hacked by a hacker. The intrusion detection mechanism must be specified in this project. The utility equipment used to gain access to the electricity grid will also be thoroughly reviewed. This project includes a discussion of a plan to avoid data beaching. To avoid data breaches in the power grid system, a crucial infrastructure is necessary. The incident of data breaching in the electrical power grid system is properly described in this system. The weakness of the security system of the electrical power grid is properly evaluated in this project. All the remedial approaches to prevent the data beaching activity in the electrical power system is properly evaluated in this project. The data recovery process is properly discussed also to mitigate the threat of data breaching.
References
Journals
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