Energy Department official warns the electric grid is being targeted by domestic and foreign adversaries

The nation's electricity infrastructure is facing increasing physical and cybersecurity threats, officials told a House subcommittee Tuesday. BRANDON BELL /GETTY IMAGES

Revelations 18:10 “In fear of her torment, they will stand at a distance and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, the mighty city of Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Power grid under threat from foreign adversaries, domestic extremists, warn experts
  • Energy infrastructure experts testified that the U.S. power grid is facing escalating cybersecurity risks and emerging threats from foreign adversaries and domestic extremists.
  • The latest annual threat assessment out of the U.S. Intelligence community identified Chinese cyber operations against the U.S. homeland as a major national security threat and warns that Beijing is “almost certainly capable of launching cyber attacks that could disrupt critical infrastructure services” nationwide, including the power grid.
  • Meanwhile, domestic extremists have been charged in recent months with plotting to attack energy facilities and power grids across the country, as part of an apparent effort to promote white supremacist ideologies.
  • Bruce Walker, former assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s Office of Electricity, told the House Energy & Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations on Tuesday that “the most important evolving threat to the electric grid is associated with cybersecurity and physical security” while calling for further collaboration between the public and private sectors.
  • “We must approach this problem differently,” Walker said. “We must transition to an all-of-society approach that, among other things, appropriately uses federal capabilities to protect the grid.”

Read the original article by clicking here.

Leave a Reply