GSN_Oct_YUMPU

Oil/Gas/Electric Grid Security
The nation’s power grid is struck by cyber or physical attacks
once every four days, according to Federal energy records
By Bill Gertz
The threat of a devastating cyber
attack on the U.S. electrical grid is
increasing due to the Obama administration’s
politically correct
policies that spend vast sums on
green and smart grid technologies
while failing to secure power grids
from cyber attack.
A report by the Manhattan Institute,
a New York think tank, warns
that the push to integrate wind and
solar electrical power into the $6
trillion electric utility system has
created new vulnerabilities that
other nations could exploit in a future
cyber war.
“Electric grids have always been
vulnerable to natural hazards and
malicious physical attacks,” writes
Mark Mills, a physicist and engineer
who authored the Manhattan
Institute report. “Now the U.S. faces
a new risk—cyber attacks—that
could threaten public safety and
greatly disrupt daily life.”
The U.S. electrical power network
is not made up of a single
grid, but a complex web of eight
40
regional “supergrids” linked to
thousands of local grids. Under a
drive for improved efficiency, government
policymakers and regulators
in recent years have spent tens
of billions of dollars on so-called
“smart grid” technology. But
the efficiency drive has not been
matched with new technology that
will secure grids against cyber attacks.
Utility owners also have resisted
improving cyber security over
concerns doing so would increase
operating costs and force unpopular
rate hikes. Yet the failure to
take steps now to deal with future
threats could prove catastrophic.
The threat, according to the report,
is not the current state of security
but the future use of greener
and smarter electric grids, interconnected
and linked to the Internet.
“These greener, smarter grids
will involve a vast expansion of
the Internet of Things that greatly
increases the cyber attack surface
available to malicious hackers and
hostile nation-state entities,” the
report warns, adding that cyber attacks
overall have risen 60 percent
annually over the past six years
and increasingly include the targeting
of electric utilities.
A recent survey by Cisco Systems
revealed that 70 percent of electric
utility security managers suffered
at least one security breach.
Unfortunately, Obama’s liberal
agenda forced government policymakers
and regulators to promote
green and smart grid technologies
while spending relatively trivial
amounts to secure those grids
from cyber attacks.
“Greater grid cyber security in
the future means that policymakers
must rethink the deployment
of green and smart grids until
there are assurances that security
technologies have caught up,” the
report recommends.
Part of the problem for grid security
is that power networks are
controlled by the private sector
utilities. Government can and
must provide intelligence and
warning of cyber threats. But grid
security is the responsibility of industry
and there is an urgent need