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.