The US Power Grid Is a Target For Russian Hackers--"Patchwork" is No Answer
"Sandworm". "Electrum". Remember those names. They are two hacking groups used by Putin's GRU, and they are both targeting and infiltrating the North American Electrical grid. These groups have knocked out the power twice in Ukraine in the recent years, affecting first 250,000 people, then half of Kyiv, and have the destructive malware capability to attack our grid.
What needs to be addressed is not just shoring up our firewalls and other cybersecurity measures. The vulnerability of the physical architecture of our power grid has to be revisited urgently. This is not just a question of developing then downloading patches sent out by Engineers. Our power grid has little depth or redundancy for withstanding an attack. Imagine if a Winter storm could cause the damage that it did in Texas, and extrapolate that to a Nationwide paralyzing attack on our grid. How many Companies with factories do you think exist in the US for building transformers, or manufacturing parts or components for them? And given that the number is less than a few dozen, which Asian Economic power would we have to purchase them from if there were a significant number knocked out, crippling Cities with millions of people? And how long would these orders take to fill? I know for a fact that this aspect of our National Security is long neglected, and only now in light of the Solarwinds hack and Texas disaster is this being treated seriously as it should be.
There have been a couple of recent fictional scenario Novels about the US power grid being brought down as an act of international terrorism. These Novels are in many cases actual scenarios, gamed out and studied by our Intelligence agencies, and I can tell you that there are a number of best selling fiction writers who have extensive ties or were former members of Intelligence agencies, or Special Forces that are out there writing. These stories are sometimes leaked out and floated publicly in this form in order to bring attention to real world problems, in the same way that orchestrated leaks to investigative journalists are a major feature of political or intellegence warfare.
Most of us don't think about these things until after they happen, like 9-11, or the Capitol riots. I have a radical idea. Why not address this BEFORE disaster strikes, instead of letting it happen and then starting some stupid Commission to study why we stupidly did nothing to prevent it? Or is that too much to hope for?
