The great northeastern blackout of 2003 had many effects on the electrical utility industry. The cascading fault highlighted what faults at key locations could do to the country as a whole. Thus, the prevention of cyber-attacks on electric utility infrastructure became a priority.
Although there have been few pressworthy cyber-attacks, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) has released a standard requirements document (NERC 1300 or CIP-002-009) aimed at making sure none ever do occur.
In response to this growing demand for secure communications in the harsh environment of the electric utility substation, NovaTech has introduced the Substation Security Appliance (SSA). The SSA combines the latest in 128/256-bit encryption technologies with a substation-hardened design including a wide-ranging power supply. The SSA is easier to configure than comparable encryption gateways because it has been tailored for utility SCADA applications.
