The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 5 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Ukraine cyber-induced power outage: Analysis and practical mitigation strategies
Abstract
On December 23, 2015, a “temporary malfunction of the power supply” in three provinces in Ukraine resulted in power outages that lasted up to six hours and affected 225,000 customers. Following the event, an investigation identified evidence that several regional Ukraine power control systems had been compromised by cyber attacks. This was the first publicly documented successful cyber attack on an electric utility's control system. Both asset owners and government officials around the world now are asking, “What happened and could a similar cyber attack happen in our control systems?” This paper provides an analysis of the Ukraine cyber attack, including how the malicious actors gained access to the control system, what methods the malicious actors used to explore and map the control system, a detailed description of the December 23, 2015 attacks, and methods used by the malicious actors to erase their activities and make remediation more difficult. We then present a detailed description of securing utility power system control systems based on best practices, including control system network design, whitelisting techniques, monitoring and logging, and personnel education. The paper concludes with a discussion of mitigation methods and recommendations that would have protected the Ukraine control system and alerted personnel in advance of the cyber attack.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“However, the security aspect of ICS and SCADA systems was not considered a global issue until the discovery of the Stuxnet worm, developed in 2010 with the specific purpose of targeting ICS [170], and the Shamoon virus, responsible for the attack on Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, caused disruption on global energy market [171].”
From SCADA Systems With Focus on Continuous Manufacturing and Steel Industry: A Survey on Architectures, Standards, Challenges and Industry 5.0 (2022) · cites this paper as [171]
Citations
Cites
Security and Privacy Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations
Joint Task Force Transformation Initiative (2013) · doi:10.6028/nist.sp.800-53r4 · Cited by 470
CONCERNS ABOUT INTRUSIONS INTO REMOTELY ACCESSIBLE SUBSTATION CONTROLLERS AND SCADA SYSTEMS
Oman, P., & Frincke, D. A. (2000) · Cited by 53
Introduction to SCADA Protection and Vulnerabilities
Barnes, K., Johnson, B., & Nickelson, R. (2004) · doi:10.2172/911209 · Cited by 15
Schweitzer, E. O., Whitehead, D. E., Risley, A., & Smith, R. (2011) · Conference for Protective Relay Engineers · doi:10.1109/cpre.2011.6035632 · Cited by 8
Self-citationCybersecurity best practices for creating resilient control systems
Smith, J., Pereyda, J., & Gammel, D. (2016) · Resilience Week (RWS) · doi:10.1109/rweek.2016.7573308 · Cited by 5
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 14
- polityuk, 2016, Ukraine Sees Russian Hand in Cyber Attacks on Power Grid
- 0, Cyber Attacks on the Ukrainian Grid: What You Should Know, iSIGHT Partners
- oman, 2001, Safeguarding IEDs, Substations, and SCADA Systems Against Electronic Intrusions, Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Western Power Delivery Automation Conference
- 2015, Critical Infrastructure Protection V
- smith, 2016, Defense in Depth Security for Industrial Control Systems, Proceedings of the Electricity Engineers' Association Conference & Exhibition
- zetter, 2016, Inside the cunning unprecedented hack of Ukraine's power grid
- 2016, The Work Group to Study the Causes of the Temporary Malfunction of Power Supply Companies, Which Took Place December 23, 2015, Ukrainian Ministry of Energy and Coal
- 2016, Advisory (ICSA-16-152-01) Moxa UC-7408-LX-Plus Firmware Overwrite Vulnerability
- 2016, Cyber-Attack Against Ukrainian Critical Infrastructure - Alert (IR-ALERT-H-16-056-01)
- polityuk, 0, Exclusive: Hackers May Have Wider Access to Ukrainian Industrial Facilities, Reuters January 2016
- 2016, Analysis of the Cyber Attack on the Ukrainian Power Grid, SANS and E-ISAC, 18
- 2016, Energy liquidate the consequences of a major accident in the Carpathian region, Prykarpattiaoblenergo Corporate Web Page
- 2016, Chernivtsioblenergo also suffered cyber attacks from Russia
- kremez, 2016, APT Malware Analysis: BlackEnergy, ?: o ? aToKl Excel VBA Dropper, viewed August 23
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 201–272 of 272
Optimal Planning Framework for Mitigating Cyber-Induced Cascading Failures in Power Grids
Venkatasubramanian, B. V., Hashemi, S., Wells, L., Laskey, K. B., van de Lindt, J. W., Amir, Y., Babay, A., Chiu, I., & Panteli, M. (2024) · IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting · doi:10.1109/pesgm51994.2024.10761080 · Cited by 1
Real-World Cyber Security Demonstration for Networked Electric Drives
Yang, H., Yang, B., Coshatt, S. J., Li, Q., Hu, K., Hammond, B. C., Ye, J., Parasuraman, R. N., & Song, W. (2025) · IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics · doi:10.1109/jestpe.2025.3550830 · Cited by 1
Al-Haija, Q. S. A. (2025) · Elsevier eBooks · doi:10.1016/b978-0-443-30076-9.00006-6 · Cited by 1
Catastrophic Cyber-Physical Malware
Kothari, S. C., Santhanam, G. R., Awadhutkar, P., Holland, B., Mathews, J., & Tamrawi, A. (2018) · Advances in information security · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-97643-3_7 · Cited by 1
Way of determining APT control channel
Yakoviv, I., Trokhymenko, A., & Hlum, K. (2021) · Collection Information technology and security · doi:10.20535/2411-1031.2021.9.2.249899 · Cited by 1
Anomaly Detection and Anomaly Location Model for Multiple Attacks Using Finite Automata
Ikeda, Y., & Sawada, K. (2022) · International Conference on Consumer Electronics · doi:10.1109/icce53296.2022.9730574 · Cited by 1
Chen, G., Hu, Z., Qu, Y., & Jin, D. (2023) · ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation (PADS) · doi:10.1145/3573900.3593633 · Cited by 1
Segurança Cibernética em Microrredes: Estado de Arte e Desafios
Zarpellon, B. O., Alberto, C. H. T., Pereira, J. S., Cebrian, J. C., & Paredes, H. K. M. (2022) · Anais do ... Simpósio Brasileiro de Sistemas Elétricos · doi:10.20906/sbse.v2i1.2908 · Cited by 1
Ameli, A. (2019) · UWSpace (University of Waterloo) · Cited by 1
Effectiveness of SCADA System Security Used Within Critical InfrastructurePreprint
Taylor, J. (2020) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2012.11375 · Cited by 1
Yamashita, K. (2020) · doi:10.37099/mtu.dc.etdr/1101 · Cited by 1
Analysis, detection, and mitigation of attacks in cyber-physical systems
Liu, H. (2021) · doi:10.32657/10356/153392 · Cited by 1
Srivastava, A. K., Venkataramanan, V., & Hauser, C. J. (2022) · doi:10.1002/9781119460794.ch11 · Cited by 1
Threat Analysis of Natural Gas Control System Based on Physical Process Constraints
Geng, Y., Liu, W., Liu, Y., Wei, Q., & Liu, K. (2018) · Chinese Automation Congress · doi:10.1109/cac.2018.8623684
Talking After Lights Out: An Ad Hoc Network for Electric Grid Recovery
Janak, J., Retty, H., Chee, D., Baloian, A., & Schulzrinne, H. G. (2021) · IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (SmartGridComm) · doi:10.1109/smartgridcomm51999.2021.9632338
A Novel Method for Cyber-Maintenance Prioritisation of Ageing Distributed Power Sources
Gernhardt, D., & Kljajić, R. (2021) · Lecture notes in networks and systems · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-92851-3_15
Supply Chain Risk Management: Data Structuring
Lopez, N., Pattanayak, A., & Smith, J. (2022) · Resilience Week (RWS) · doi:10.1109/rws55399.2022.9984043
Self-citationIoT in smart communities, technologies and applications.
Syed, M. Z. A. S. (2022) · ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository (University of Louisville) · doi:10.18297/etd/4029 · Cited by 1
Uddin, M. M., Islam, K. R., & Kabir, M. M. (2023) · International Journal of Power Electronics and Drive Systems/International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering · doi:10.11591/ijece.v13i4.pp3631-3640
Model of four cyber attack information environments
Yakoviv, I. (2023) · Collection Information technology and security · doi:10.20535/2411-1031.2023.11.2.293768
Alvarez‐Alvarado, M. S., Apolo-Tinoco, C., Ramirez-Prado, M. J., Alban-Chacón, F. E., Pico, N., Aviles-Cedeno, J., Recalde, A. A., Moncayo-Rea, F., Velásquez, W., & Rengifo, J. (2024) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4687769
Towards Cyber-Secure and Hazard-Resilient Smart Civil Structures
Montoya, M. C., Rubio-Medrano, C. E., & Kareem, A. (2024) · Report · doi:10.2749/manchester.2024.0199
The Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) in the Electricity Sector: Balancing Utility and Responsibility
Ecevit, M. İ., Pervez, M. H., Dağ, H., & Creutzburg, R. M. (2024) · Electronic Imaging · doi:10.2352/ei.2024.36.3.mobmu-318
He, W., Wen, C., & Liu, W. (2024) · Journal of Physics Conference Series · doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2781/1/012023
Hu, Z., Waind, L., Qu, Y., & Jin, D. (2024) · ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation (PADS) · doi:10.1145/3615979.3662153
A Review About Security In The Context Of Smart Cities
Buzatu, C.-A., Chiriac, V. M., & Tarniceriu, D. G. (2024) · International Conference on Electronics, Computers and Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) · doi:10.1109/ecai61503.2024.10607492
Research on Cybersecurity Assessment and Defense Strategies for Power Systems
Cai, Z., Wu, P., & Liu, N. (2024) · International Conference on Energy Engineering and Power Systems (EEPS) · doi:10.1109/eeps63402.2024.10804529
Distributed Prescribed-Time Observer Design Under Homologous Sensor Attacks
Zhu, M., Fu, G., & Liu, S. (2024) · International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV) · doi:10.1109/icarcv63323.2024.10821573
Research on Abnormal Instruction Detection in Intelligent Distribution Network
Su, H.-F., Sun, M., Chen, S., Shi, L., & Dong, X. (2024) · International Conference on Clean Energy and Electric Power Engineering (ICCEPE) · doi:10.1109/iccepe62686.2024.10931293
Suorsa, M., & Helo, P. (2025) · Information Security Journal A Global Perspective · doi:10.1080/19393555.2025.2489421
Dynamic Impact of Cyber-Attacks on Grid Forming Inverters
Anantarativakorn, P., Ruangsuwan, C., & Kerdphol, T. (2024) · IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2) · doi:10.1109/isc260477.2024.11004222
Cybersecurity Regulations in the Energy Industry: A Detriment or a Benefit?
Tomasek, R., & Qu, Y. (2025) · European Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science · doi:10.24018/ejece.2025.9.3.709
Cybersecurity for Line Differential Protection in an Islanded Microgrid
Alsaeidi, F. S. (2023) · Saudi Arabia Smart Grid Conference (SASG) · doi:10.1109/sasg60762.2023.11076082
Çalgan, H., Gokyildirim, A., Sharkh, S. M., & Demirtaş, M. (2025) · Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics · doi:10.1016/j.cam.2025.116932
Fu, H., pan, H., Na, C., & Li, F. (2025) · International Conference on Advanced Electrical and Energy Systems (AEES) · doi:10.1109/aees66649.2025.11332367
The Road to SDV: A Maturity Model for Software-Defined Transformation
Mathur, A. R., Misra, A., & Makam, S. (2026) · SAE technical papers on CD-ROM/SAE technical paper series · doi:10.4271/2026-26-0679
Topology Change Estimation in Power Distribution Networks: A Machine Learning Approach
Dey, A., Chakraborty, S., & Salapaka, M. V. (2026) · IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid · doi:10.1109/tsg.2026.3658595
Zhu, H., Liu, C., Yang, M., Wang, X., Deng, R., Tang, Y. S., Wu, X., & Long, C. (2026) · IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics · doi:10.1109/tii.2025.3649279
Enbot: Robust Bot Detection in Industrial Internet of Things Using Intelligent Techniques
Sharma, V. P., & Gajrani, J. (2026) · Lecture notes in networks and systems · doi:10.1007/978-981-96-9935-3_16
Quantum authenticated communications
Hill, R., Richards, C. G., Thresher, A., Tripp, J. L., Graves, L., Krzyzanowska, K., Meier, K. A., & Newell, R. (2026) · Quantum Computing, Communication, and Simulation · doi:10.1117/12.3081155
Modeling and Analysis of Malware Attacks on Power Systems
Saudi, M. M., & Puasa, A. Y. (2025) · International Conference on Clean Energy Storage and Power Engineering (CESPE) · doi:10.1109/cespe68033.2025.00083
Human and Organizational Factors in Smart Grid Cybersecurity: A Systematic Literature Review
Shah, R. T., van Eeten, M. J. G., Pieters, W., & Parkin, S. E. (2026) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-19540-1_3
Risk assessment and SCADA systems
Kaur, M., & Ramkumar, K. R. (2026) · AIP conference proceedings · doi:10.1063/5.0329174
Shafir, L., Elyashar, A., Cohen, J., Zeitoun, M., Holipsky, M., Yaakov, B., Aliev, E., Puzis, R., Harel, Y., & Wool, A. (2026) · ACM Workshop on Cyber-Physical System Security (CPSS) · doi:10.1145/3775042.3807883
Anomaly Detection and Compensation System on Solar Smart Inverters Using Isolation Forest
Zhang, Z., Khan, T. A., & Rahman, M. S. (2026) · IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability · doi:10.1109/sustech67720.2026.11536437
Šimčák, J., Szomosi, V., Hyseni, A., Margita, F., Glajc, K., & Medveď, D. (2026) · EPJ Web of Conferences · doi:10.1051/epjconf/202637202002
Irradiance-Driven Natural Watermarking for Detection of False Data Injection in PV Inverters
Bjorndal, L. C., Balahewa, I., Kurdkandi, N. V., Huang, T., & Mi, C. C. (2026) · Energies · doi:10.3390/en19122851
A Synchrophasor State Estimator Algorithm That Guarantees Immunity Against GPS Spoofing
Raju, B. M., Navalkar, P. V., & Soman, S. A. (2026) · IEEE Transactions on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems · doi:10.1109/ticps.2026.3706643
Bianchin, T., Brandão, D., Sisinni, E., Ferrari, P., & Gaffurini, M. (2026) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app16146875
Reliable Uncertainty-Aware Semi-supervised Cyberattack Detection in Smart Grids
Dash, S. P., & Khandeparkar, K. (2026) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-981-92-2891-1_1
Ngasham, N., & Goswami, M. (2026) · Lecture notes in networks and systems · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-26905-8_1
Yue, Y., Tan, S., Tao, Y., Wu, Z., & Lü, J. (2026) · IEEE Internet of Things Journal · doi:10.1109/jiot.2026.3725751
Towards reliable intrusion detection in smart grids: A multiclass, process-aware perspective
Loughmari, M., Bouhadda, M., & Affar, A. E. (2026) · Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems · doi:10.1177/18758967261484195
Doostmohammadi, A., Ameli, A., Ghafouri, M., Arani, M. F. M., & El-Saadany, E. F. (2026) · IEEE Internet of Things Journal · doi:10.1109/jiot.2026.3730880
Black, C. R., Thorn, M., Carrington, A., & Rahman, M. (2026) · IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting · doi:10.1109/pesgm58988.2026.11693605
The Alignment of Cyber Behavior and Theory
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0001
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0009
Insights on Armed Conflict and Cyber Campaigning
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0007
Cyber Persistence and Campaigning
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.001.0001
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0011
Cyber Campaigning and Militarized Crisis
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0004
Adoption, Adaptation, and Advancement
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0003
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0008
On Cyber Campaigning and Initiative Persistence
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0002
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.002.0005
Insights from Militarized Crisis and Cyber Campaigning Case Studies
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0005
Cyber Campaigning and Armed Conflict
Fischerkeller, M. P., Goldman, E. O., & Harknett, R. J. (2026) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/9780197868454.003.0006
False data injection attacks in smart grids: a review
Caleb, T. D., Shao, S., & Kaabouch, N. (2026) · Cybersecurity · doi:10.1186/s42400-026-00647-7
Dalamagkas, C., Atalaya, F., Constantin, I., Brito, J., & Rioja, G. M. (2026) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-34198-3_10
Metadata
- Authors
- Whitehead, D. E., Owens, K., Gammel, D., & Smith, J.
- Affiliations
- Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (United States) (US)
- Venue
- 2017 70th Annual Conference for Protective Relay Engineers (CPRE)
- Publisher
- IEEE
- Published
- 2017-04
- Pages
- 1-8
- OpenAlex
- W2766130346
- Cited by
- 272
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 43 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 53 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 28 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 2
- FWCI
- 17.13
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Conference for Protective Relay Engineers (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Control and Systems Engineering › Smart Grid Security and Resilience
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Information and Cyber Security
- Keywords
- power outages, control system security, whitelisting, network design, attack mitigation, critical infrastructure protection
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review