Cybersecurity competencies are critical in the smart grid ecosystem, considering its growing complexity and expanding utilization. The smart grid environment integrates different sensors, control systems, and communication networks, thus augmenting the potential attack vectors for cyber criminals. Therefore, interdisciplinary competencies are required from smart grid cybersecurity specialists. In the meantime, there is a lack of competence models that define the required skills, considering smart grid job profiles and the technological landscape. This paper aims to investigate the skill gaps and trends in smart grid cybersecurity and propose an educational approach to mitigate these gaps. The educational approach aims to provide guidance for competence-driven cybersecurity education programs for the design, execution, and evaluation of smart grids.
Critical infrastructures (CNI) are vulnerable to cyberattacks due to their interconnected communication systems. We are developing a platform using real-time simulation of cyber-physical systems to enhance CNI resilience and security. The platform, initiated in the Vaasa Harbor Microgrid, allows creation of a digital twin and real-time execution of its functions. It provides a co-simulation environment for simulating cyberattack scenarios, aiding in the design of a cybersecurity simulator-based platform and offering services for CNI stakeholders.
In order to achieve financial well-being, individuals need to make sensible financial decisions. Personal finance management (PFM) systems help individuals with saving, budgeting, consumption, borrowing, and lending tasks. As much as these systems help individuals, they may also have unintended consequences. This study increases the knowledge of how PFM systems emancipate and oppress young people. We used an interpretive research approach and collected qualitative data. Our major finding is that PFM systems emancipate young people by promoting agency (the freedom to act) due to the efficient implementation of PFM tasks, for example. These systems also oppress users by hindering rationality (the freedom to think) due to stress and encouraging users to make decisions too quickly, for example. Based on the results, we offer implications for the development and research on PFM systems to reduce oppression and promote emancipation in young people.