Austrian electricity industry trade body Oesterreichs Energie and the European Network for Cybersecurity (ENCS) have provided a Red Team/Blue Team training programme that is designed to strengthen cybersecurity and awareness for employees across utility departments.
The programme is expected to help protect Europe’s power grids as security grows increasingly important.
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The training setup comprises a simulated grid operator, which includes physical devices such as a medium-voltage circuit breaker, routers, protocol gateways and protection relays.
The programme is supplemented by a virtual 40-substation network, a simulated grid environment and a SCADA network.
During the three-day course, participants are divided into attackers (Red Team) and defenders (Blue Team) to put their new knowledge into practice and see if they can defend Gridnet, the simulated company.
The rise of the smart grid, electric vehicle infrastructure and smart metering are making cybersecurity more important than ever around Europe.
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By GlobalDataIt is reported that critical operational technology (OT), which was previously analogue and unconnected, now needs suitable security solutions and methods.
Oesterreichs Energie noted that it takes these cybersecurity challenges very seriously as its members account for more than 90% of the country’s electricity supply.
ENCS operations director Michael John said: “Oesterreichs Energie has shown real leadership for the Austrian electricity sector on cybersecurity and we’re very pleased to be part of that. To successfully protect our power grids, we need to share expertise and collaborate: across Europe, across companies and across teams.
“The power of Red Team/Blue Team is it gets people from different teams working together, IT professionals and engineers, to protect the grid in a joined-up way.”
