On August 5, 2020, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee questioned witnesses from the power industry and the federal government about the readiness of the United States bulk-power system (BPS) for a cyberattack. The witnesses were Thomas O’Brien, Senior Vice President and CIO of PJM Interconnection, LLC (PJM), Alexander Gates of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Policy for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), Joseph McClelland, Director of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Office of Energy Infrastructure Security (OEIS), and Steve Conner, President and CEO of Siemens Energy, Inc. The hearing touched on many issues related to cybersecurity, including the Trump Administration’s recent Executive Order 13920 regarding the security of the BPS, which we discussed here.
Committee Chair, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), opened the hearing by noting the importance of cybersecurity and observing that cyberattacks on the power grid are “near-constant and only growing more sophisticated.” Nor are such attacks confined to the power grid; the Senator mentioned recent attacks on both the DOE’s Hanford Site…
