U.S. Senators Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) introduced two pieces of legislation to protect the country’s energy grid from cyber-attacks.
A U.S. Government Accountability Office report praised federal agencies for collaborating with each other on grid resilience and not duplicating efforts.
In August 2013, Former Assistant Defense Secretary for Homeland Defense & Americas’ Security Affairs, Dr. Paul Stockton sat on a panel that discussed cybersecurity challenges facing the electric sector and some of the vulnerabilities in the U.S. electric grid system.
As critical infrastructure in the United States becomes more dependent on networked systems, such as the smart grid, the electricity industry is at risk for new avenues of attack.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has rejected a proposal to improve electric grid security, sending the proposal back to the North American Electric Reliability Corp. for revision. The group must strengthen its rules about how utilities should assess and protect power substations and systems, the ruling says.
