SLDC, TANTRANSCO gets dedicated cyber security teams

CHENNAI: Nearly two years after the centre revealed four of India's five regional load despatch centres that oversee the country's critical electricity load management function had faced cyberattacks, the State Load Despatch Centre (SLDC) and Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation (TANTRANSCO) are all set to get dedicated teams for cybersecurity.

According to a TANGEDCO order, it proposed the formation of a dedicated cyber security team with sufficient IT knowledge for the SLDC and TANTRANSCO to handle correspondences with statutory bodies in respect of cyber security in compliance with the Ministry of Power directions.

After the cyberattacks on the Regional SLDCs, the Central Electricity Authority has issued the guidelines for cyber security in the power sector 2021 on October 7, 2021, for compliance by the power utilities. The Centre has set up a Computer Emergency Response Team - India (CERT-In) which acts as a nodal agency to co-ordinate all matters related to cyber security in the country, under the Ministry of Power.

"TANTRANSCO and SLDC, separate sectoral CERTs agencies have been set up by the Government of India, namely CERT-TRANS for TANTRANSCO and CERT-GO for SLDC. Separate Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) have been appointed - Chief Engineer/P&C for CERT-TRANS and Chief Engineer/Grid Operation for CERT-GO, " the order noted.

In order to ensure cyber safety, it directed the formation of an information security division (ISD), functional on a 24x7 round-the-year basis, with a dedicated team for cybersecurity-related works and also for establishing a security operation centre (SOC) with a dedicated team. "At present, there is no exclusive information security division and security operation centre for the SLDC and TANTRANSCO. Also, there is no exclusive IT resource for TANTRANSCO and SLDC, " it noted.

A senior TANGEDCO official said that dedicated teams for cyber security have been formed to secure the power networks from the cyber-attacks leading to blackouts.