System being developed to restore power after cyberattack

March 15 (UPI) -- BAE Systems is to develop technology for the U.S. military to quickly restore power to the U.S. electrical grid in case of failure due to cyberattack, the company announced Wednesday.

The work was commissioned by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and is worth $8.6 million.

The technology is part of DARPA's Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation, and Characterization Systems, or RADICS program to quickly isolate enterprise IT and power infrastructure networks from all conduits of malicious attack. The technology developed will also establish a secure emergency network among trusted organizations for coordination restore power to the electric grid.

"Getting the power back on quickly after a cyberattack is critical to national defense," Victor Firoiu, senior principal engineer and manager of Communications and Networking at BAE Systems, said in a press release. "Given the scale and complexity of the U.S. power grid, and the chaos following a coordinated, large-scale attack, this is no easy task. Our work with DARPA is intended to stop ongoing attacks and minimize downtime."

BAE Systems said technology will detect and disconnect unauthorized internal and external users from local networks within minutes and create a hybrid network of data links secured by multiple layers of encryption and user authentication.

Work on the RADICS project will be conducted at company facilities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Virginia.