That widely-reported, malicious Russian hack of Vermont’s electrical power grid never happened. But the United States’ energy structure remains in “imminent danger” of a real cyberattack that could paralyze power and natural gas deliveries.
The premature report that software code associated with a Russian intelligence agency had found its way into the grid-management systems belonging to the Burlington Electric Department turned out to be no more than a passing visit, by one Burlington employee on a laptop, to a website that has been associated with malicious code. As c|net succinctly reports, “nothing happened.”
- The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
- You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
- The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Nonetheless, the same outlet reports, the alarm should be taken seriously even if it was false this time. It quotes the assertion in the U.S. Department of Energy’s latest Quadrennial Energy Review that: “Widespread disruption of electric service because of a transmission failure initiated by a cyberattack at various points of entry could undermine U.S. lifeline networks, critical defence infrastructure, and much of the economy; it could also endanger the health and safety of millions of citizens.”
Moreover, the DOE said, “natural gas plays an increasingly important role as fuel for the nation’s electricity system; a gas pipeline outage or malfunction due to a cyberattack could affect not only pipeline and related infrastructures, but also the reliability of the nation’s electricity system.”
The agency urged Congress to overhaul the U.S. Federal Power Act to “grant the DOE emergency powers over the electrical grid to deal with the threat,” c|net reported.
(Ironically, the Quadrennial Energy Review was unavailable for direct review yesterday, “due to a technical problem with access,” according to the agency’s website.)
