The latest high-profile cyberattack that stunned America occurred on May 7, 2021, when Colonial Pipeline, which sends more than 100 million gal. of fuel daily from Houston to New York, was forced to shut down operations after hackers penetrated its computer networks. The company covers approximately 5500 miles and is a major fuel supplier for Southeast and the East Coast. This incident led to panic and left many states scrambling for gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. The FBI traced the attack to a group called DarkSide, a cybercrime gang based in Eastern Europe that’s notorious for hacking into companies systems, encrypting their files and extorting them to pay large ransoms to unlock the data. This incident put a spotlight on US’s aging infrastructure. Most of the equipment that are in used today are 40 to 50 years old. Back then, companies only cared about reaching as many people as they can and did not have the foresight on what was to come. However, incidents like this are creating a renowned push for upgrading the infrastructure.

Nowadays, a talented individual or group of talented people could potentially gain control of equipment through the use of technologies to intentionally create complications, like malfunctions that lead to grave incidents. These kinds of attacks are mostly seen in places where heavy machinery is constantly controlled and dealt with. Electric grids are a perfect example of mechanical automatization, they provide a synchronized connection between power providers and customers which allows for the transmission and distribution of energy. Thus making it a perfect target for cyberattacks.

False Data Injection (FDI) consists of introducing false new data into the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. This false new data can lead to misrepresenting the status of one or many other components of the electric grid, thus leading those who check the electric grid to mistakenly take the wrong measures. FDI attacks are done in many ways, for example, an attacker can choose to inject the false data in random intervals of quantity and time, or it could be done in a constrained manner. This is very dangerous because the attacker haves’ control over what the monitor or operator sees.