# Toward Secure Smart Grid Systems: Risks, Threats, Challenges, and Future Directions
## 9 Lessons Learned, Suggestions, and Recommendations
### Suggestions and Recommendations
#### 9.2.3 Advanced Ethical Hacking and Digital Forensics  
Forensics is essential when it comes to testing and assessing the security level of a smart grid. Therefore, several measures could be adopted, such as employing advanced techniques of digital forensics and ethical hacking.  
1. **Employing Digital Forensics After Incident:** To maintain the efficiency, security, and safety of smart grid systems, digital forensics tactics must be integrated. This is because they can make it possible to identify attack vectors and their source [305]. This is particularly important since, in addition to the vulnerabilities that currently exist in ML and DL, the system can be compromised at the client device, centralized server, or network levels [274; 275]. Using digital forensics in the wake of a cyber incident involving smart grids requires carefully gathering and examining data from compromised systems to identify the attack vector, assess the size of the breach, and ascertain the techniques used by the attackers. This approach is essential to reconstructing the incident timeline, preserving evidence for use in court, and guiding future security measures aimed at averting recurrence and enhancing the overall resilience of the grid.
2. **Employing Periodic Ethical Hacking:** Since clients, servers, and network devices are vulnerable to various attacks, smart grid systems must periodically rely on ethical hacking techniques and tools [286] to identify potential vulnerabilities and suggest appropriate countermeasures to guarantee a higher level of security and privacy preservation. Since the selected client or server devices' data samples are incorporated in the model training process, this technique can identify whether or not they are susceptible to attacks or can be compromised. As a result, intentional damage can also be achieved, aside from information leakage, while exposing the privacy of the training dataset. Therefore, to find and address any exploitable weakness or security gap, the security of every smart grid system component needs to be addressed and evaluated.  
When authorized security professionals use simulated cyberattacks to periodically probe the smart grid's communication network for vulnerabilities, they can find possible gaps in smart grids before hostile actors can exploit them. This technique is known as periodic ethical hacking. Through constant evaluation and enhancement of the grid's security posture, this proactive strategy guarantees improved defense mechanisms and overall system robustness against changing threats. Enhancing smart grid security involves adopting a segmentation process to isolate critical components and mitigate potential malware attacks like worms and Trojans. Regular updates and patching across smart grid applications, software, firmware, middleware, devices, and hardware ensure ongoing resilience against emerging threats. Effective third-party management is essential as it verifies the security practices of external entities accessing smart grid systems, such as cloud storage or data analytics, to uphold stringent security standards and mitigate risks associated with external access.