Growing demand of smart meters leads to cyber intrusions

As the Government of India’s ambitious smart metering program, to deploy 250 million smart metres under the RDSS scheme, gains momentum in the country, there is an urgent need to secure the AMI system from vulnerabilities and threats of cyber-attacks. IntelliSmart Infrastructure Private Limited (IntelliSmart), a JV of the NIIF and EESL, and the India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) jointly organised the Smart Meter Cyber Security Conference 2022 in New Delhi, where all the industry stakeholders concluded the conference with an agreement to have a clear-cut policy and a robust regulatory framework for cyber security.

The conference attracted the highest level of engagement, with participation from the government, regulators, utilities, researchers, manufacturers, developers, and academia. The inaugural session, attended by Rahul Dwivedi, Executive Director, Rural Electrification Corporation; Arun Kumar Mishra, Executive Director, Power Grid Corporation, Ghanshyam Prasad, Chairman, Central Electricity Authority of India, Anil Rawal, MD & CEO, IntelliSmart; and Reji Kumar Pillai, President, India Smart Grid Forum. The speakers emphasised the importance of translating security measures to the level of consumers, mandating certification training followed by regular upgrades in tandem with evolving security systems, developing focused guidelines and procedures, and rallying ongoing discussions for greater participation and cognizance.

Reji Kumar Pillai, President, India Smart Grid Forum & Chairman, Global Smart Energy Federation, said, “Security of the power system is of paramount importance to the country, and there should be appropriate frameworks and systems to protect the power grid from cyber-attacks. “The 250 million smart metres and millions of electric vehicles that are being rolled out on fast track could significantly increase the points of cyber intrusion and hence the vulnerability of the power system.”

“The smart metering programme under RDSS will bring a socio-economic change and empower consumers,” said Anil Rawal, Managing Director & CEO of IntelliSmart. The biggest risk for the programme is cyber security, as AMI, once operational at scale, will generate huge amounts of data that have to be secured.  “The Smart Meter Cyber Security Conference 2022 gives the industry a platform to deliberate on the issue and prepare it for the next level of cyber security readiness with a focus on the right policy proposition and on-ground implementation guidelines.”

In addition, a panel titled “Regulatory Compliances: Cyber Security Readiness in the Wake of the RDSS Program” brought valuable thoughts from different fields. Participants included the chair of the session, Vishal Kapoor, CEO, EESL, Atul Bali, Director (NPMU), National Smart Grid Mission, Shalu Agrawal, Sr. Programme Lead – Power Sector, CEEW, Sunandan Banerjee, Principal Consultant, SonicWall, and Manish Tembhurkar, Associate Partner, KPMG. The other session on Cyber Security Threat Modeling for Digital Architecture of Smart Meters was chaired by M.A.K.P. Singh, Member, Central Electricity Authority of India, and other speakers included Anand Budholia, President IT and Group CIO at BSES, Gautam  Kumar, CTO, IntelliSmart, Yosi Shneck, Founder and CEO, YSICONS; and Senior Consultant and Founder of the Cyber Entrepreneurship Unit at Israel Electricity Corporation, Shivakumar V, Joint Director, Central Power Research Institute; and Kishor Narang, Founder, Narnix.