The first Cybersecurity Lecture of the summer term 2014 was given by Prof Frank Pallas, researcher at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s Center for Applied Legal Studies as well as at the FZI Research Center for Information Technology in Germany. After giving a brief introduction to smart grid security and privacy, Prof Pallas raised the question why the numerous scientific contributions in this area have not found their way into practical application. He argued that this is largely due to the fact that regulatory constraints have been overlooked in these works, and summarised the main paradigms and preconditions from European regulation, referring in particular to the conditions and implications of Europe’s liberalised energy market. Prof Pallas ended his talk by sharing advice that any well-founded approach to smart grid information security and privacy should consider these constraints in order to be actually applicable.