Atos Origin and NXP Introduce End-to-End Smart Grid Security

Atos Worldline, which brings together Atos Origin’s expertise in high-tech transactional services, and NXP Semiconductors N.V. has announced an end-to-end security and authentication solution designed to protect Smart Grid networks against energy theft, privacy breaches and grid attacks. The solution brings Atos Worldline’s ESS (Energy Security Service) and Atos Worldline’s SMP (Smart Meter Personalisation) together with secure last-mile devices and authentication technology from NXP. The new security architecture was unveiled in a demonstration at the Smart Metering UK & Europe Summit 2011 in London.

The end-to-end Smart Grid security solution is based on the concepts of “security by design” and “privacy by design,” and offers Worldline ESS for end-to-end message encryption from the smart meter to the meter data management platform, as well as encrypted storage of data in the back office, Atos Worldline SMP in accordance with the highest technical security requirements to protect confidential information from unauthorized and unnoticed access, NXP au10tic ICs for authentication of all Smart Grid components to secure data, preserve privacy and prevent counterfeiting of last-mile devices, and prevent energy theft, and Prepayment with smart cards using NXP smart card reader ICs, contactless reader ICs, SAM (Security Access Module) ICs, MIFARE® and SmartMX technology and NFC controllers.

"The need to secure last-mile devices in the Smart Grid has been a major concern for Smart Utilities as we work with them to secure their networks. As a trusted supplier of security ICs to governments around the world, NXP brings a strong portfolio of embedded security and trust provisioning solutions that will help us deliver a true end-to-end data security and privacy solution for the Smart Grid,” said Andreas Fitzner, director of sales utilities, Atos Worldline.

"As a leading supplier in intelligent energy management, Atos Origin brings tremendous experience in both conventional and real-time IT solutions for the utility market. We are very pleased to be working closely with Atos Worldline on securing the Smart Grid from the end devices to the smart meter, and on to the utilities’ energy management platform,” said Chris Feige, senior director and general manager, tagging and authentication product lines, NXP Semiconductors.