http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2009/tc20090320_788163.htm By Katie Fehrenbacher BusinessWeek GigaOm March 23, 2009 Imagine if the havoc caused by Internet viruses and worms - downed web sites, snatched credit card data, and so forth - were unleashed on the power grid's critical infrastructure. The results could include targeted blackouts, tampering with power generation (including nuclear plants), or the use of energy consumption data for malicious intent. For while a smart power grid, which leverages information technology to add more intelligence to the electricity network, will give consumers and utilities more control over energy consumption, the transformation from analog to digital will bring to the grid a threat that plagues the Internet: hacking. According to a report in the National Journal last year, hackers in China may have already used what little infotech intelligence there is on the current power grid to cause two major U.S. blackouts. So with a smart grid moving to become reality, utilities and federal regulators are trying to ready themselves for potential dangers. As representatives from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said at a smart grid policy meeting last week, maintaining security is the highest priority. Why is a smarter power grid so vulnerable? Joe Fagan, an attorney for Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who has spent his career representing the energy industry, including extensive work with FERC, explained that transforming the power grid's largely one-way distribution network into a two-way system delivers many more points of contact with the network. And if the power grid is to be run by networks based on Internet Protocol, hackers have spent years developing the tools needed to take such networks down. [...] _______________________________________________ Best Selling Security Books and More! http://www.shopinfosecnews.org/Received on Mon Mar 23 2009 - 02:22:13 PDT
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