Aurora mitigation status and lack of industry credible response

The electric industry still has done very little other than paper studies to address the Aurora mitigation. I believe there are several reasons for this:

• Many utilities feel the Aurora test was not realistic and therefore discount its results. They are wrong – the test was realistic with no mitigation devices bypassed.

• Many utilities are using the Dominion Virginia/Quanta report on Aurora mitigation devices that stated that Aurora mitigation devices would lead to spurious trips. The assumptions that went into this report are very questionable.

• Many utilities are concerned with the original NERC Aurora Advisory that stated that any device that could be affected by Aurora would become a NERC Critical Cyber Asset.

DOD is working with two utilities to demonstrate the use of the Aurora hardware mitigation devices. The first utility has provided DOD with several dozen event reports to date. None of the events involved simultaneous phase angle deviation and rate of change of phase angle which could have led to a trip signal. It shows that there are events in the grid that can be detected by the Aurora mitigation device, and that the Aurora mitigation is well-behaved and does not send false trip signals.

Aurora including the utility data will be discussed at the October ICS Cyber Security Conference – www.icscybersecurityconference.com.

What is the next excuse for not addressing Aurora?

Joe Weiss