Kim Riley reports that cybersecurity threats to the U.S. electric grid are growing, Fowke said, offering a personal corporate example. Last year, Xcel Energy identified more than 500,000 individual cyberattacks on its networks and already this year, the company reports a 10% increase in various intrusions over the same period in 2016.
While most cyberattacks against a utility are similar to the attacks targeting any other company in that cybercriminals and hackers seek personal or corporate data, attempt to defraud the company or its customers, or hold the company network hostage in a ransomware attack, Fowke said that utilities have much more at stake.
Utilities like Xcel Energy have an even greater concern, the same concern that prompted today hearing ... attacks from terrorists or nation-states targeting the control systems for the electric grid, he said.
Fowke and several others provided Senate subcommittee members with their perspectives on such cybersecurity threats to the U.S. grid and the technology advancements to minimize those threats, and gave their input on the Securing Energy Infrastructure Act, S. 79, which was introduced Jan. 10 by Sen. Angus King Jr. (I-ME), who sits on the subcommittee.
During hearing, King recalled the successful cyberattacks in 2015 and 2016 on the Ukraine power grid. Recent reports say that Russian hackers may be behind the cyberattacks. And worry grows that the same problem could occur in America, witnesses testified.
This is warfare changing before our eyes, and the Russians are doing it on the cheap, said King, explaining that rather than buying expensive missiles or tanks, for example, the Russians can wreak havoc by just hiring 500 hackers or trolls, instead. The devastation would be comparable, he said.
We need this country to develop a comprehensive cyber strategy, King added, proposed legislation to accomplished just that.To that end, S.79 would give the secretary of the U.S.DOE the authority to take all actions.
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