Improving Electric Power-Grid Security
The US is very close to improving power grid security by mandating the use of "retro" (analog, manual) technologies on US power grids as a defensive measure against foreign cyber-attacks that could bring down power distribution as a result.
The idea is to use "retro" technology to isolate the grid's most important control systems, to limit the reach of a catastrophic outage.
"Specifically, it will examine ways to replace automated systems with low-tech redundancies, like manual procedures controlled by human operators," said US Senators Angus King and Jim Risch , who first introduced the bill on the Senate floor in 2016.
"This approach seeks to thwart even the most sophisticated cyber-adversaries who, if they are intent on accessing the grid, would have to actually physically touch the equipment, thereby making cyber-attacks much more difficult," they said in a press release at the end of June.
The bill now needs approval from the US House of Representatives, where SEIA had been introduced as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020.
If approved, the SEIA bill would establish a two-year pilot program with the National Laboratories to study power grid operators and identify new vulnerabilities. However, the National Laboratories might also develop new analog devices that could be used to isolate the most critical systems of covered entities from cyber-attacks; and establish a working group to test the newly developed analog devices.
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