Trial evaluation: conclusive lessons from Essence case studies

Several cyber-security frameworks have been developed to protect critical infrastructures from
cyber-attacks, but it was rather difficult to anticipate costs and benefits of their adoption, although worldwide
experience had shown that both are huge. This report summarises the results of the ESSENCE project,
discussing the methodology used in the case-studies, and discusses the open issues and the policy
implications. The analysis clearly shows that from a mere economic viewpoint, electric companies have no
incentive to increase their security levels, as the annual costs of those countermeasures is much greater than
their direct cost of the economic losses derived from a single blackout. However the total cost of an event for
the society as a whole is by far greater than the annual cost of the said countermeasures.