Fergie's Tech Blog

Will Cyber Intrusions Crash U.S. Electrical Grid?

Anne Broache writes on the C|Net News Blog:

Some critics of the U.S. government's cybersecurity efforts might argue that nothing short of a bomb going off--or, well, purported Chinese cyberattacks on feds' machines--will land the issue more notice.

This time around, the wake-up call for politicians was, indeed, an explosion: In September, U.S. Homeland Security officials revealed that researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory had managed to destroy a small electrical generator through a simulated cyberattack. A few weeks ago, CNN aired a gloom-and-doom segment featuring snips from the once-classified video showing the device going up in smoke.

Although the prospect of that sort of incident causing massive disruption to the U.S. electrical grid has been around for years, the success of the experimental hack is drawing new calls from Congress for tougher federal security standards on the computer systems that control the nation's power systems.

posted by Fergie @ 10/17/2007 05:58:00 PM