The recent cyber attack on Ukraine’s power grid highlights a new challenge for the United States: not only protecting our electric system against such attacks but also ensuring that utilities can rapidly restore power if the grid goes down.
Decades of experience with hurricanes and other natural hazards has helped utilities hone their ability to restore power after Superstorm Sandy and other massive blackouts. However, sophisticated cyber adversaries could strike the grid in entirely different ways, by corrupting the integrity of utility control systems and disrupting other vital grid operations and components.
The challenges for restoring power after such attacks will be starkly different as well. In the case of Sandy, power companies from as far away as California could send power restoration teams to the stricken region, safe in the knowledge that their own utilities would escape the storm. A nationwide cyber attack will strip away that sense of safety and fray the mutual assistance system that lies at the heart of the U.S. power restoration system.
A new study by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, “Superstorm Sandy: Implications for Designing a Post-Cyber Attack Power Restoration System,” examines these novel challenges, and explores how utilities can ramp up the progress they are already making against increasingly severe cyber threats.
The study was conducted by Dr. Paul Stockton. Now a senior fellow at APL and managing director of Sonecon, LLC, Stockton was the assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs during Sandy, and helped lead the Department of Defense’s support for utility power restoration efforts during the superstorm.
“Rather than build a separate restoration system for cyber attacks,” Stockton emphasizes, “electric utilities and their government partners should explore how they can leverage existing mutual assistance agreements and other mechanisms to meet the unprecedented challenges of the cyber era.”
Learn more: How the Nation’s Electric Utilities Can Speed Recovery from Cyber-Induced Blackouts
The Latest on: Nationwide cyber attack
[google_news title=”” keyword=”nationwide cyber attack” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Nationwide cyber attack
- May 8: MoD cyber attack; Nationwide airport issue; New First Minister; CLE53 Cabrioleton May 7, 2024 at 10:53 pm
State involvement in MoD cyber attack cannot be ruled out, Grant Shapps says Grant Shapps has said that 'state involvement' in the large-scale cyber ...
- Border Force gates back online after outage chaos as Home Office rules out cyber threaton May 7, 2024 at 10:35 pm
Border Force gates back online after outage chaos as Home Office rules out cyber threat - Pictures show queues at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Edinburgh and Manchester ...
- UK rules out cyber threat after resolving passport gate outageon May 7, 2024 at 8:27 pm
Britain's Home Office said border control systems are operational after an outage that it deemed was not a cyber attack led to lengthy queues and chaotic scenes at airports nationwide. "At no point ...
- Insurance superintendent issues warning after cyber attackon May 2, 2024 at 3:42 pm
The New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance on Thursday urged New Mexicans to take certain actions to protect their personal information in the wake of a massive hack ...
- Change Healthcare cyberattack was due to a lack of multifactor authentication, UnitedHealth CEO sayson May 1, 2024 at 9:06 am
The Change Healthcare cyberattack that disrupted health care systems nationwide earlier this year ... than two hours questioning the CEO about the attack and broader health care issues.
- Change Healthcare cyberattack was due to a lack of multifactor authentication, UnitedHealth CEO sayson May 1, 2024 at 9:02 am
The Change Healthcare cyberattack that disrupted health care systems nationwide earlier this ... Senate Finance Committee hearing examining cyber attacks on health care, and the Change Healthcare ...
- Change Healthcare cyberattack was due to a lack of multifactor authentication, UnitedHealth CEO sayson April 30, 2024 at 6:12 pm
His admission did not sit well with Senate Finance Committee members who spent more than two hours questioning the CEO about the attack and broader health care issues. “This hack could have been ...
- Congress must work to prevent future cyber-attacks on health care industryon April 27, 2024 at 4:00 am
Wyoming pharmacies and providers are still dealing with the impacts of a cyber-attack on Change Healthcare, more than a month later, with no clear end in sight.
via Bing News