Software defined networking as a mitigation strategy for data communications in power systems critical infrastructure

The frequency and cost of cyber-attacks continues to grow in commercial information systems. In power systems critical infrastructure, any level of breach may be unacceptable. Securing this infrastructure requires new approaches to communications networks which are not readily vulnerable to remote attack. Standard protocols like Ethernet and IP are difficult to secure. Within well-defined domains, SDN may provide mitigation for vulnerabilities which are otherwise intractable. Methodical approaches have been developed and implemented at a test site.