Queen's University researchers have been granted £400,000 to reduce cyber-attack threats to the national grid.

The project seeks to identify vulnerabilities within the national grid as wind and solar generated electricity become more widely used.

The research is one of four new projects making up a £2.5m initiative, co-funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and UK's National Cyber Security Programme, that will examine the cyber-security of the UK's critical infrastructure.

Professor Sakir Sezer, from the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen's, said: "Presently, Ireland frequently operates with over 50 per cent of electricity supplied by wind generation. Operating the system with such high levels of renewable generation is a challenge, and requires complex wide area monitoring and control.

"Should the telecoms systems that support the control system be compromised, the impact of the resultant loss of electricity supply would have far-reaching consequences for society. This would involve loss of consumer supply, supply to hospitals, industry, and would even affect the gas, water and sewage networks.

"The researchers will demonstrate assured and improved operational decision making and lay the groundwork for a new, cyber-threat resilient, control architecture for the grid."

(IT/JP)