ÖRUGG Consulting Engineers have been working on a comprehensive security risk assessment of critical electric infrastructures for Iceland State Electricity (RARIK). Continuity of operations in electrical distribution is of the utmost importance for the company, whose network covers 90% of rural areas in Iceland. Incompliance with the company’s holistic risk management approach, security risks must be assessed and proactively mitigated.

ÖRUGG consulting engineers is the leading firm in security risk assessments in Iceland. We use the ISO 31000 risk management framework for the general approach of security risk management, but differentrisk assessment methods based on the type of structures and level of detail needed.

We considered the dynamic nature of security threats through an in-depth threat analysis and used vulnerability analysis to reveal their critical interaction to the infrastructure assets. We recognize that no security barrier has a 100% effectiveness, and thus assume a layered approach to protection, as shown in the Figure.

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The electrical infrastructure is a fundamentalpart of the national critical infrastructure, and as such, the consequences must be assessed in a wider context than as mere property loss. The criticality assessment has therefore considered the function of the respective parts of the electric distribution part, revealing its importance at local, regional, and national level.

The result comprises design and organizational recommendations that must be taken into account in new design and when increasing the security of older infrastructure.  

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