ISIS ATTACKS U.S. POWER GRID

    AMERICAN BLACKOUT ...IMAGINE...

2013 - National Geographic... A LONG FILM, BUT WORTH THE WATCHING.
WE ARE MORE VULNERABLE THAN MOST KNOW.
According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) latest (2014) report, all it would take to plunge the entire nation into darkness for more than a year would be to knock out a transformer manufacturer and just 9 of our 55,000 electrical substations on a really hot summer day. 

ACCORDING TO A CNN REPORT :

On Wednesday, US law enforcement officials revealed a series of cyber attacks in which ISIS attempted to sabotage the American electrical system. The disclosure was given at a conference of American energy firms which were meeting about national security concerns.

Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security, warned company executives that “ISIS is beginning to perpetrate cyber attacks.”

Terrorists are not currently using the most sophisticated hacking tools to break into computer systems and turn off or blow up machines.

"Strong intent. Thankfully, low capability," said John Riggi, a section chief at the FBI's cyber division. "But the concern is that they'll buy that capability."   

The FBI now worries that the Islamic State or its supporters will buy malicious software that can sneak into computers and destroy electronics. An attack on power companies could disrupt the flow of energy to U.S. homes and businesses.

The grid isn't as uniform and connected as people might believe. Currently, it's a chaotic patchwork of "grids," each with different types of machines and software that don't smoothly coordinate or communicate.

Experts attending GridSecCon, held by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, seemed cautious but hopeful.   

When energy industry representatives asked Riggi how the FBI knows who's hacking -- whether it's a government or independent hacking group -- he said American spies that are monitoring computer networks are quick to share information with law enforcement.

"Since the FBI is an intelligence agency, we rely on the help of CIA and NSA. We compare information with the NSA."

Having found evidence of ISIS members crossing the Mexican/U.S. border, we know that ISIS could use the southern border of the United States to launch a major biological weapons or dirty bomb attack on American soil. 

Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County, Arizona testified today before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.   
“We just discovered two weeks ago a tunnel in our county. This was a tunnel about two years old that I hate to use the word, but a ‘VIP’ tunnel, which means human smuggling is not coming through that tunnel,” testified Sheriff Dannels. “You’re looking at a large amount of drugs, money, and what you’re alluding to is those terrorists or those people who pay the price to come in our country and harm our citizens. I’m very concerned about that. If you can bring drugs or product through, you can bring terrorists through so it’s of great concern.”

Last week, Gen. John Kelly, the Southcom commander, warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that smuggling networks in Latin America “could unwittingly, or even wittingly, facilitate the movement of terrorist operatives or weapons of mass destruction toward our borders, potentially undetected and almost completely unrestricted.” 

“Last year, ISIS adherents posted discussions on social media calling for the infiltration of the U.S. southern border,” he noted. “Thankfully, we have not yet seen evidence of this occurring, but I am deeply concerned that smuggling networks are a vulnerability that terrorists could seek to exploit.”

Gen. Kelly also expressed concerns about the presence of Iran and the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah in the Latin America region.  

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Chris Cabrera, who testified alongside Sheriff Dannels, indicated that nearly 6 out of every 10 illegal aliens who attempt to cross the southern border are not apprehended."

LET US NOT FORGET THAT THE ISLAMIC STATE HAS ALREADY BOASTED THAT IT WILL HAVE HUNDREDS OF ITS MEMBERS EMBEDDED IN THE INCOMING INFLUX OF THOUSANDS OF SYRIAN REFUGEES TO AMERICA WHO ARE ALREADY ARRIVING HERE.

LET US ALSO NOT FORGET THAT, FOR OVER 3 DECADES EXPERTS HAVE WARNED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THAT OUR POWER GRID IS ANTIQUATED AND COULD EASILY GO DOWN FOR MONTHS.

CONGRESS DID NOT SEE FIT TO AUTHORIZE THE FEW MILLION IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN WHEN THIS WAS FIRST BROUGHT TO THEIR ATTENTION ALL THOSE YEARS AGO TO MAKE NEEDED REPAIRS OR UPGRADE OUR GRID.

TODAY, THE SAME REPAIRS AND UPGRADES WILL COST BILLIONS. 

INTERESTINGLY, CHINA HAS BEEN MORE SUCCESSFUL AT CYBER ATTACKS ON AMERICA'S GRID, AND CHINA WOULD HAVE TO SUPPLY US WITH THE TECHNOLOGY TO REPAIR OR UPDATE WHAT WE HAVE!

Adm. Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command, said Thursday that China and “one or two” other countries have the power to shut down the U.S. electric grid with cyber attacks.

The NSA chief made the statements while speaking to the House intelligence committee.

“All of that leads me to believe it is only a matter of when, not if, we are going to see something dramatic,” Adm. Rogers said, The Associated Press reported. 

U.S. offensive capabilities that would deter China and other nations from making such a move were not discussed at the hearing."
"The electricity system in this country has operated on the most part on 1950s technology," said Bill Gould, executive director of EPRI's northeast region. "There are probably lines in cities there for nearly 100 years. But the U.S. electrical system is a national treasure. It needs to be spruced up."

While paying for power upgrades may seem painful, Kiesling says it's better than suffering through another system-wide failure.

"I always like to ask the 'compared to what?' question," she said. "What will the costs be if the upgrades are not made, and who bears them? One way we can think about technology upgrades especially is as insurance, pay for upgrades to avoid the large costs of blackouts."

NO MATTER WHO WARNS OR WHAT NATION THREATENS US WITH A RETURN TO THE STONE AGE FOR MONTHS TO YEARS TO DECADES, CONGRESS HAS NO INTENTION OF UPGRADING OUR CURRENT ANTIQUATED SYSTEM! 

THAT WOULD TAKE AWAY FROM ALL THEIR FAVORITE PORK BARREL SPENDING THAT COSTS US BILLIONS EACH YEAR!

AS SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN WARNED LAST JUNE:

"It’s very hard to overstate how important the US power grid is to American society and its economy. Every critical infrastructure, from communications to water, is built on it and every important business function from banking to milking cows is completely dependent on it.

The damage to modern society from an extended power outage can be dramatic, as millions of people found in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. 

The Department of Energy earlier this year said cybersecurity was one of the top challenges facing the power grid, which is exacerbated by the interdependence between the grid and water, telecommunications, transportation, and emergency response systems.

Why the grid so vulnerable to cyberattack
Grid operation depends on control systems—called Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA)—that monitor and control the physical infrastructure. At the heart of these SCADA systems are specialized computers known as programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Initially developed by the automobile industry, PLCs are now ubiquitous in manufacturing, the power grid and other areas of critical infrastructure, as well as various areas of technology, especially where systems are automated and remotely controlled.

The oft-cited solution of an air-gap between critical systems, or physically isolating a secure network from the internet, was precisely what the Stuxnet worm was designed to defeat. The worm was specifically created to hunt for predetermined network pathways, such as someone using a thumb drive, that would allow the malware to move from an internet-connected system to the critical system on the other side of the air-gap."

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO DISRUPT THE GRID.
SOME ARE QUITE SIMPLE, OTHERS REQUIRE JUST A LITTLE "HIGH TECH KNOW-HOW" AND STILL OTHER COMPLETE DISRUPTIONS COULD COME FROM NATURAL PHENOMENON, LIKE MAGNETIC STORMS, SOLAR WINDS, HURRICANES, EARTHQUAKES. 

ONE WEBSITE THAT HAS ACTIVELY TRIED TO INTEREST AMERICANS IN FORCING CONGRESS TO ADDRESS THE FAILING GRID CAN BE FOUND <HERE>. 

The US Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack -- established by Congress -- has produced multiple reports and briefings including an Executive Report and a Critical National Infrastructures Report.

With power outages 285 percent more likely to occur today than in 1984, it is critical that the nation ensure its electric power system is reliable, according to a recent study by Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

Because of the growing risks to the nation's electric grid, DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) finally completed its Recovery Transformer (RecX) program, and published a final report that contains lessons learned, evaluations and considerations for a spare transformer strategy to support our nation’s electric grid in the event of an EMP attack, CME or some other natural or manmade disaster that severely disrupts the nation's power grid.

According to DHS S&T, “RecX is a mobile spare extra high voltage (EHV) transformer designed to be rapidly deployed in the event of a transformer failure. Development of the prototype RecX was completed in 2011 by the manufacturer ABB and the Electric Power Research Institute. 

The RecX was successfully field tested in CenterPoint Energy’s grid in March 2012. The field test demonstrated RecX’s rapid deployment speed by reducing the time needed to transport, install and energize from the typical 8-12 weeks to less than six days.  

DHS S&T stated that, “In April 2015, the Department of Energy (DOE) released their Quadrennial Energy Review (QER), which highlights the significant risks associated with EHV transformers. 

The QER recommends that ‘DOE should lead—in coordination with DHS and other federal agencies, states and industry—an initiative to mitigate the risks associated with the loss of transformers,’ including ‘development of one or more transformer reserves through a staged process.’ 

Part of this development process requires assessing ‘technical specifications for reserve transformers’ and how reserve transformers should be stored and deployed.”

• Effective collaboration of government (DHS, DOE and others), EPRI, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), utilities, private enterprise (OEMs and others), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and regulators is critical for success over the long term. Due to the critical nature of this work, EPRI recommends a forum for exchange of information on this topic between representatives of these stakeholders."      
  
  DID CONGRESS BUY INTO THIS?
  NO!
  
  SHOULDN'T WE DEMAND TO KNOW WHY NOT?
  
  OR SHOULD WE JUST WAIT FOR ISIS TO GET LUCKY...OR FOR CHINA TO TAKE DOWN THE GRID?