MODELING OF CYBER THREATS RELATED TO MASSIVE POWER OUTAGES AND SUMMARY OF POTENTIAL COUNTERMEASURES

R. Drahuntsov, V. Zubok

Èlektron. model. 2023, 45(3):116-128

https://doi.org/10.15407/emodel.45.03.116

ABSTRACT

During the Russian-Ukrainian war, mass power outages occurred in Ukraine, caused by Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure, namely on the generating and distribution capacities of the power system. The risks associated with such outages cover not only the issue of uninterrupted operation of the economy directly, but also more complex aspects related to cyber security. The impact of such outages on the cyber security of information and communication systems is considered, namely, the second-order effects, such as interruptions with information observability, violation of the integrity of the protection infrastructure, overloading of monitoring teams and response to false alarms. All these factors alter the threat landscape for the system and must be considered in security policy and during the threat modeling process accor­dingly. An analysis of hidden cyber security risks arising in connection with massive power outages was conducted. Possible approaches to taking such risk factors into account when modeling threats, as well as methods of countermeasures, are given.

KEYWORDS

blackout, power outage, cybersecurity, information observability, false posi­tive, CSIRT, russo-ukrainian war.

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