Page 17 - FCW, July 15, 2016

for securing the grid?
The scope and nature of the cyberattack on the Ukrainian power grid last year has spurred legislation in Congress that would make the U.S. grid less digitized
BY SEAN LYNGAAS
A cyberattack on Ukraine’s power grid in December cut power for 225,000 people and set off alarm bills in the U.S. Congress. The scope of the hack, for which Russia is widely believed to be responsible, stoked fears that the American grid was at least as vulnerable and demanded a legislative response.
An analysis of the hack published by the Electricity Information Sharing and Analy- sis Center and the SANS Institute states it is “the first time the world has seen this type of attack against [operational technology] systems in a nation’s critical infrastructure.”
The cyberattack was unusual because it hit two kinds of critical infrastructure: the electrical grid and the telecommunications system. Attackers generated thousands of calls to one of the Ukrainian power compa- nies, which prevented customers from calling to report outages.
The Ukrainian hack was a “really serious warning...[that] this is a crisis waiting to happen,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said in a recent interview.
July 15, 2016
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