Sensus Partners with EnerNex and ORNL to Conduct a AVUD System Demonstration

Sensus, a utility infrastructure company, announced that it is collaborating with EnerNex, a provider of research, engineering, and consulting services for the electric power utility industry, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), a multi-program science and technology laboratory, to conduct a Automated Vulnerability Detection (AVUD) system demonstration.

The partnership would work to increase cyber security in smart meters with the new Function Extraction or FX system technology for vulnerability detection.

According to ORNL, the FX system relies on the fundamental mathematics of computation to do the bookkeeping that is challenging for a human analyst and the approach is well-suited to exploit high-performance computing at all levels of analysis.

Recent advances in software behavior computation illuminate an opportunity to compute the behavior of malware at machine speeds, to aid in understanding intruder methods and developing countermeasures. ORNL devised the Function Extraction (FX) technology evaluation platform to perform static analysis of the compiled software and device firmware.

Sensus asserted that it is making data and cyber security high priorities and it is working to strengthen industry standards. A team of ORNL and EnerNex cyber security experts is currently completing development of the AVUD system and will be demonstrating the technology with Sensus.

EnerNex stated that software present in smart meters is the initial target for this effort. While testing can only provide information about the specific scenarios actually observed, static analysis with FX can provide information about system behavior under any circumstances of use, and provides a significantly more robust means of vulnerability detection.

The AVUD project’s objective is to realize a more powerful analysis capability that is capable of detecting any vulnerabilities that may be present in the code. The partnership hopes that in the future, all advanced meter vendors would want to integrate this type of technology into their QA cycles.

In other news, EnerNex recently announced a contract award from the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in support of the Smart Grid interoperability standards development and harmonization effort to enable widespread deployment of an interoperable and secure Smart Grid.