Utilities & Smart Grid Cybersecurity Solutions

Utility providers use smart grid devices to efficiently tailor power generation to power consumption. These connected devices have many data endpoints, where data is transmitted from one device to another. Futurex provides cryptographic solutions you can deploy quickly to secure data endpoints and manage cybersecurity infrastructure. Our encryption services for utilities providers protect your most sensitive data from natural disasters and cyber threats of any scale.

HSMs perform encryption functions. Key management servers establish CA and PKI for digital signing. Cryptographic management services handle load balancing, device grouping, failover. Deployment options include on-premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid model. Our solutions include automated failover, disaster recovery, and tamper-responsivity.

Challenges Facing Utilities and Smart Grid Cybersecurity

Utility companies and smart meter manufacturers are charged with securing highly sensitive information. Consumer energy usage data (CEUD) is passively captured from residences and businesses, while customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) is actively captured. Utility companies must secure data endpoints of connected devices to prevent tampering. Of equal importance is enterprise device management, especially when dealing with vast infrastructures.

Secure data endpoints of networked devices, like smart meters
Manage large networks of connected devices
Protect CEUD and PII stored within databases
Harden infrastructure against tampering, cyberattacks, and natural disasters

Futurex Solutions for Utilities and Smart Grid Cybersecurity

Futurex provides every type of encryption, key management, and device management functionality through our market-leading HSMs and key management servers. We offer flexible deployment: on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid. This helps utility providers and device manufacturers fulfill specific use cases or deploy entirely new infrastructure. Futurex solutions make it easy to establish the CA and PKI needed to create a network of trusted devices.

Key management servers: encryption key lifecycle management
Certificate authority (CA): establish PKI, digitally sign objects, manage certificates
HSMs: logically and physically secure, FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validated encryption
Central device management with user-defined groups and load balancing

Challenges Facing Cloud Key Management and BYOK

Providers of critical power infrastructure benefit from the scalability and versatility of cloud cryptography. It eliminates the need for on-premises device management. However, the data handled by utilities providers is highly sensitive. Providers need to access and control their encryption keys locally. An external key management (EKM) or bring your own key (BYOK) solution is needed.

Achieve scalability and efficiency with cloud cryptography
Reduce on-premises management costs
Maintain high level of security
Control and encrypt keys locally

Futurex Solutions for Cloud Key Management and BYOK

Using a Futurex BYOK solution allows utilities and 5G providers to leverage the power of cloud cryptography while maintaining total control over their encryption keys. Futurex provides external key management (EKM), BYOK, and client-side encryption (CSE) services. Your organization’s keys are stored in FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validated HSMs which you deploy on-premises or via Futurex’s VirtuCrypt cloud service.

256-bit AES keys with user-defined rotation policies.
CSE: encrypt data locally before transmitting and storing it
Bring your own key (BYOK) and external key management (EKM)
Fast and easy setup using VirtuCrypt Intelligence Portal (VIP)

Asymmetric Encryption

Futurex key management servers use a certificate authority to generate asymmetric key pairs: a public and private key. This allows devices like smart meters to transmit data over public networks like the internet by using a public key.

Learn about database encryption >

Universal Compliance

All Futurex HSMs are FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified and meet the highest levels of compliance. With both physical and logical security controls built in, Futurex HSMs are recognized as secure cryptographic devices (SCDs).

See our cryptographic architecture >

Certificate Authority (CA)

IoT device manufacturers can use Futurex enterprise key management servers to establish a PKI to secure private keys and create an offline root certificate authority (CA). The offline root certificate establishes a working certificate that can digitally sign smart meters and code and can authenticate CEUD to prevent unauthorized access to utility networks of IoT devices. Like the PKI, having a CA in your security infrastructure is essential to protecting connected utility devices and mitigating cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

A Public Key Infrastructure allows users or devices to securely transmit sensitive data over insecure public spaces such as the internet, using asymmetric key pairs consisting of a public and private key. The data is transmitted with a public key and then decrypted with the private key in a secure environment. The PKI encrypts and authenticates this data, enabling the receiving entity to trust the integrity of the data.

Public key infrastructures use public and private key pairs generated and distributed by a trusted device known as a certificate authority (CA). Certificate authorities, often validated by third-party auditors, generate digital certificates and assign them to the electronic devices that make up the PKI.

Tokenization

Tokenization replaces sensitive data with a string of identifying characters, known as tokens, for storage. Two common approaches to tokenizing data are hash-based message authentication code (HMAC) and encryption-based. Users prefer the encryption method in cases where they need to reverse the tokenization for any reason. Tokenization effectively removes the burden of multiple parties storing sensitive data in the clear while still allowing easy access to authorized applications and users.