DOE approves $15M for grid security measures
July 14, 2016 | By
April Nowicki
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will provide up to $15 million in funding to help strengthen and protect the nation's electric grid from cyber and physical attacks, pending congressional approval. The announcement from U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall noted that the funds would support efforts by the American Public Power Association (APPA) and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) to improve the culture of security within utility member organizations despite the wide assortment of utility types. "An example of a weak point for us is the varied nature of the electricity sector," Sherwood-Randall said, according to FCW. "We have major investor-owned utilities with significant resources; we also have smaller utilities." APPA and NRECA would use the funds during the next three years to develop security tools, educational resources, updated guidelines and training on common strategies that can be used by utilities to cultivate an improved cyber and physical security culture. Approximately 26 percent of the nation's electricity customers are served by municipal public power providers and rural electric cooperatives. "As our definition of energy security and the cyber threat landscape evolve, we continue to help our partners strengthen the ways in which they protect critical infrastructure," said Sherwood-Randall in a statement. "This funding is another important step in improving the resiliency of our power grid and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to threats in today's dynamic environment." Following the cyberattack on Ukrainian electricity grids in December 2015 and increasing threats to the Internet of Things (IoT), legislators are looking for ways to protect U.S. power transmission and controls. One bill would create a pilot program to detect security vulnerabilities in the electric grid, and proposed consideration of analog components impervious to cyberattacks. If put into effect, proposals from the bill would effectively take sections of the grid back in time to analog controls, requiring retrofitting systems to require manual operations, as reported FCW. For more:
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