Russian Scientists Create a “Physical Antivirus” for Power Grids
The new system is designed to protect digital substations from cyberattacks, preventing large-scale blackouts.
Russian scientists from the R. E. Alekseev Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University have developed and patented a novel method for protecting digital substations from cyber threats. Unlike conventional IT-based security tools, the approach monitors the physical fundamentals of how power equipment operates, detecting anomalies in real time.
The system is built on a core principle of electrical engineering: the sum of currents entering and leaving a substation node must equal zero when everything is functioning correctly. The technology continuously tracks these parameters. If, with sensors operating normally, electrical laws are violated—for example, an “extra” current appears or changes occur at an unrealistically high speed—the system flags this as a potential cyberattack.
As the university explained to IT-Russia, the researchers trained the system to distinguish between a hacker attack and a genuine equipment failure. While an attacker can manipulate digital data, they cannot deceive Kirchhoff’s or Ohm’s laws. Any discrepancy between digital signals and real physical processes becomes immediately apparent.
A Technological Barrier Against Cyberattacks
The system accounts for the rate of current changes so as not to confuse an attack with routine switching operations in the grid, and it relies on additional diagnostic indicators. Crucially, key connections in the protective device are designed independently of the substation’s main digital network, making the solution resilient even to attacks targeting the local network itself. According to the developers, an alert is generated only after cross-checking with data from the control system.
This type of “antivirus” creates a technological barrier against cyberattacks capable of triggering cascading outages, damaging costly equipment, and causing serious socio-economic consequences. The patent underscores the strength of Russia’s scientific school in the field of intelligent power systems.
The new solution adds an extra layer of protection for critical infrastructure, which is especially relevant as smart grids continue to evolve. The technology is already ready for deployment and could be in demand among energy companies and manufacturers of domestic relay protection equipment.
