Cyber security in the dirt surrounded by 330 thousand volts - Stories of practical cyber in power generation

With experience over the past decade in practical remediation and implementation of cyber controls in grid connected power generation, we have engaged with the reluctance of OT, SCADA, power and secondary engineers to entertain cyber controls and have negotiated, begged, pleaded and ordered engineering changes despite the significant hurdles to be cleared.

In this presentation I will cover specific project examples (reasonably redacted!) of brownfield remediation and greenfield design and construct cyber controls in the 100MW -> 1GW asset generation range.

Focusing on the challenges of interacting with National Energy Rules, Transmission Network Service Providers, eclectic customer requirements and the more recent legislative requirements of the SOCI Act.

Having experience with over 50 assets, our experience is extremely diverse, and looking to tell stories that improve the understanding of a cybersecurity professional in the critical infrastructure power generation space.

We have worked with the requirements of the Foreign Investments Review Board (FIRB) all the way down to a very specific engineers requirement for air-gapped OT protocol networks.

We will cover retrofits, design arguments, commissioning frictions, outright asset failures, and cyber incident response in a critical infrastructure context.

This will be a "story time" focus (with the names removed) to ensure an entertaining, practical, boots on the ground insight to running and building power stations and power infrastructure in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.