• NIST issues expanded draft of its smart grid cyber security Strategy for public review

    The coming Smart Grid will offer efficiency and savings, but also new cybervulnerabilities; NIST has issued the second draft proposal of its smart grid cybersecurity requirements; the document identifies more than 120 interfaces that will link diverse devices, systems, and organizations engaged in two-way flows of electricity and information and classifies these connections according to the risks posed by a potential security breach

  • Utilities to bolster smart grid cybersecurity

    Annual spending on cybersecurity by electric utilities will triple by 2015, driven by investment in equipment protection and configuration management; between 2010 and 2015, Utility companies will invest more than $21 billion on cybersecurity

  • Researchers work to help secure the U.S. power grid

    The U.S. Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid (TCIPG) team explores the Smarter Grid — secure and reliable technology involved in the underpinnings of the U.S. electrical power infrastructure; as power grids are upgraded and connected to online systems to increase efficiency, they become vulnerable to malicious attacks and hackers; the TCIPG team will develop cyber security tools and technologies to ensure that power supplies are not disrupted

  • How vulnerable is the smart grid?

    The smart grid is a theoretically closed network, but one with an access point at every home, business, and other electrical power user where a smart-grid device is installed; those devices, which essentially put the smarts into the grid, are computers with access to the network; in the same way attackers have found vulnerabilities in every other computer and software system, they will find vulnerabilities in smart-grid devices

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  • Smart grid runs into trouble over powerline standard, I

    The U.S. government has awarded $4 billion in grants to build a smart electric grid; appliance makers need an easy, low cost way to plug into the grid; today they face as many as a dozen wired and wireless choices, most of them far too expensive and high bandwidth, focused on carrying digital music and video around the home rather than on helping save energy