Ahmad Taha knows what it is like to live in a war zone. Born in Lebanon, Taha, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio, recalls what it was like for him when he was a child and his country's electrical grid was bombed in a series of attacks.
"Where I lived, power outages were prevalent, they would happen every day," said Taha. "But when my city's grid was bombed, we had two solid weeks without electricity. We had no power and no water. We had to stay in the apartment, huddled around a radio, waiting to see what happened next. That experience influenced the way I think about power grids."
After relocating to Texas, Taha wanted to ensure that the electrical grids of the country in which he now resides are safe from attacks. He recently received a $30,000 grant from the UTSA Vice President for Research Office for his research. Taha is not concerned about physical attacks like he experienced in Lebanon; he is more concerned about detecting cyber threats to electrical grids. His research will focus on smart grids and how to protect them from cyber attacks. Smart grids are internet-enabled devices that generate and monitor much of the electric power in the U.S.
"In the past few decades, we've become increasingly reliant on the internet. That reliance naturally spreads to machines and devices that generate and consume electricity," Taha said. "This is especially true with communication networks, and as a result, those networks and much of the cyber world is embedded into smart grids."
Smart grids encompass most energy systems, such as smart meters in people's homes and renewable energy resources like wind and solar energy. The energy industry has invested heavily in smart grids in recent years, capitalizing on benefits such as digital communications technology, which allows for computer- based remote control and automation.
"All of our basic infrastructures, such as transportation, air traffic control, and water distribution systems, depend on electricity and smart-grid technologies," Taha said.
While smart grids are modern and efficient, they're susceptible to cyber attacks, which can be difficult to detect. Cyber terrorists could hack into smart grids and manipulate smart meter measurements, which could cause a person's energy bill to skyrocket. On a larger scale, tampering with a smart grid can result in a blackout.
"Just a small blackout could have serious consequences to our local and federal economies," Taha said. "The 2003 Northeast Blackout only lasted a few days, and yet it caused billions of dollars in damage."
In collaboration with the Argonne National Laboratory and fellow College of Engineering faculty Nikolaos Gastsis and Bing Dong, Taha plans to visualize these disturbances by using actual data from smart grids to simulate an attack. Repeatedly testing his digital protections to identify weak spots in smart grids, so that the attackers can't target those areas again.
"A huge part of the analysis of smart grids is understanding how electric power is generated and flowing in the network," he said.
"Once you understand how this works, it's possible to see when something unusual is occurring." Taha expects his research will lead to infrastructures that not only detect when tampering is occurring within a smart grid, but also to track the person who is hacking into it.
"Smart grids are the cornerstone of our economy," Taha said. "They're also a huge part of everyone's daily lives, and they need proper protection."
– Story by Joanna Carver
Photography by Deborah Silliman
