Employing a User-Centered Design Process for Cybersecurity Awareness in the Power Grid

In this paper, we discuss the process we are using in the design and implementation of a tool to improve the situation awareness of cyberattacks in the power grid. We provide details of the steps we have taken to date and describe the steps that still need to be accomplished. The focus of this work is to provide situation awareness of the power grid to staff from different, non-overlapping roles in an electrical transmission organization in order to facilitate an understanding of a possible occurrence of a cyberattack. Our approach follows a user-centered design process and includes determining the types of information to display, the format of the displays, and the personnel to whom the display should be shown. Additionally, there is the issue of how much help the tool can provide in the way of assessing the probability of a cyberattack given the current status of various portions of the power grid. Regardless, the ability to provide a common operating picture should enable the various groups to collaborate on a response.