Hackers Penetrate the U.S. Power Grid

Cyberspies from China, Russia and other countries have penetrated the U.S. electric grid and left behind traces of software programs that could disrupt the entire U.S. electric system. This information was released today from former and current national security officials.

The intruders were believed to have navigated through the U.S. electrical systems and controls. These intrusions have been more of an exploratory nature and not to disrupt our power grid.

A senior intelligence official stated that, "the Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid and so have the Russians."

Many of the intrusions were detected by U.S. intelligence agencies and not by the companies overseeing the infrastructure. Intelligence officials are very concerned about cyber attacks taking control of our electrical facilities, nuclear power plants and even our financial networks; all by just using the internet.

The flow of electricity is controlled by local utilities or regional transmission organizations and with the growing dependency of internet-based communication; the U.S. infrastructure is more vulnerable to cyberspies and hackers infiltrating our systems.

U.S. officials stated that it's nearly impossible to know whether the attacks are government sponsored or not. However the trail of stolen data leads back to China and Russia.

In January 2008, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved new protection measures that will improve the security of computer servers and better ways of handling cyber-attacks in the future.

Smart Grid Technlolgy

Smart Grids are digitally based electricity distribution and transmission systems and test have shown that a hacker can break into the system resulting in a massive blackout.

IOActive, a professional security services firm, has concluded that with $500 of equipment and materials and a background in electronics and software engineering, a hacker could infiltrate the advanced meter infrastructure and cause a massive manipulation of service to homes and businesses.

Once in the system, a hacker could gain control of thousands of meters and shut them all off simultaneously. It would also be possible to increase or decrease the demand for power and disrupting the load balance on the local power grid causing a blackout. Starting as a localized power outage, it would then cascade to other parts of the grid, expanding the blackout. One can only speculate how wide spread the outage would become.

Industry experts have said that they have no intention of placing an unsafe grid online. As of now there are no Smart Grid cybersecurity standards in place. A spoke person for the Department of Homeland Security stated, "there are a lot of discussions about where the requirements will come from and who will be ultimately responsible."

Garry Brown, who is the chairman of New York's Public Service Commission, said he believes the benefits of Smart Grid outweigh the risks, but his State needs to take a good look at cybersecurity before making large investments in the technologies.

In conclusion, we have to be vigilant and address security issues in the Smart Grid early on before moving forward with deployment of the Smart Grid infrastructure.