Electricity Today T&D Magazine

Utilities are rethinking cybersecurity. The zero-trust model replaces perimeter defense with continuous verification—of every device, vendor, and data path—across the substation and supply chain.

The End of Perimeter Thinking

For decades, substation cybersecurity meant building walls: firewalls at the perimeter, limited physical access, and segmented control systems. The assumption was simple—keep bad actors out, and everything inside the fence is safe. But as substations evolve into digital, data-driven nodes within the smart grid, that assumption no longer holds. Today, cyber threats often arrive not through the gate but through trusted vendors, firmware updates, and networked devices already inside the perimeter.

...