Genus Power and NanoLock Security are working together to secure smart meters and prevent utility cyber attacks and fraud.

Israeli firm NanoLock’s device-level product is bringing cyber protection and management to India’s largest smart metering infrastructure provider, Genus Power, and its customers, to protect utilities and smart city users against cyber attacks, while reducing operational costs and securing revenue lost to fraud and theft.

NanoLock specialises in protecting smart metering infrastructure, IoT and connected edge devices. Genus Power Infrastructures provides full spectrum smart energy metering. The firms are cooperating on cyber security that protects smart metering infrastructure, manufactured by Genus Power, from cyber attacks, theft and fraud.

They are also providing a managed security service for utilities and smart city users that would reduce their operational costs, especially in remote rural areas through trusted over-the-air (OTA) updates, while securing revenue that is often lost due to theft and fraud.

Driven by rising emissions, energy resource constraints and outdated infrastructure, the global smart meter market is growing in demand. Genus Power installs more than 100,000 smart meters a month worldwide and operates over one million connected edge metering devices. Genus has already provided 1.5 million smart meters to India’s Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) as part of ESSL’s 240 million smart meters deployment plan by 2023.

However, with this growth come increased cyber threats that could create major financial impact for the utilities industry. Beyond attacks on the grid, a research report conducted by Northeast Group states that electricity theft and fraud totals $96bn a year globally.

Genus Power chose NanoLock’s device level protection and management to protect its infrastructure from human errors and threats, while introducing remote management and control to new and legacy devices in its smart meter portfolio. NanoLock brings patented device-level protection and management to Genus Power’s smart meters and other devices.

NanoLock fulfils security regulations for the energy industry, and provides Genus Power’s customers with a managed cyber-security service that offers device monitoring, alerts and version upgrades, and enables secure and verified OTA updates to provide increased cyber protection for utilities. This protection can scale to support millions of devices to prevent cyber attacks of connected devices and secure revenue for utilities that can be lost due to theft.

“The cooperation with NanoLock makes perfect sense for us,” said Chandra Prakash, vice president of sales at Genus Power. “The new managed security service that we’ve jointly developed allows us to offer unprecedented security, operational cost savings, and eliminates potential fraud against our utilities and smart city customers. Because NanoLock can remarkably protect and manage new and legacy smart meters, we see the potential for this service to be deployed in tens of millions of our devices.”

The service from Genus and NanoLock will be commercially available for products globally early next year.

“The smart meter market is booming, but so too are the potential cyber threats,” said Eran Fine, CEO of NanoLock. “Utilities and smart city providers are confronting new attacks all the time and any connected device could be the entry point for attackers. This collaboration with Genus Power brings a novel and viable protection to critical infrastructure providers for smart meters and other connected devices at the edge, reducing operational cost, especially for remote and rural areas. Together we’re giving utilities and smart cities a tool that will allow them to securely manage, update and protect their systems, while preventing theft and fraud, which is creating a major loss in revenue for these companies.”

Genus Power Infrastructure, incorporated in 1992, is engaged in the design, development and manufacturing of electronic energy meters and engineering construction. The company provides a range of services, which include construction, setting up transmission towers, execution of civil work, laying of cables and conductors, and installation of transformers. It has five manufacturing plants across Jaipur, Haridwar and Guwahati.

NanoLock Security works with major utilities, industrial companies and large ecosystem partners in Japan, Spain, Switzerland, Singapore, Netherlands, USA and Israel.