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Attack on Power Grid Underscores Terrorism Threat

New York Times, August, 2014 -  A carefully-staged sniper attack on a California power station last year may well have been a rehearsal for a much larger assault on America’s highly vulnerable power grid with unimaginably vast and extended disruptive consequences. On April 16, just after midnight, a small group of armed people slipped into an …

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Order 802 Mandates New Security Standards

Security Standards increase the safety of our nation's Electric ProvidersThe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approves Reliability Standard CIP-014-1 (Physical Security). The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), the FERC-certified Electric Reliability Organization, submitted Reliability Standard CIP-014-1 for Commission approval in response to a Commission order issued on March 7, 2014. The purpose of Reliability Standard CIP- 014-1 is to enhance physical security measures for the most critical Bulk-Power System facilities and thereby lessen the overall vulnerability of the Bulk-Power System against physical attacks. In addition, the Commission directs NERC to develop one modification to Reliability Standard CIP-014-1 and submit an informational filing.

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Air Force Warns of 'Coordinated Physical Attacks' on Electric Grid

terror warning map from CONSJOURNAL.com - no owner info attachedWashington Examiner, March 2016 -

Electromagnetic pulse attacks on the energy grid, a topic that used to prompt eye-rolling in Washington, is now a top concern for the U.S. Air Force. Officials have raised new worries that “determined adversaries” want to attack the grid, either with a physical hit or a potential EMP attack. Experts have suggested that North Korea, for example, is testing missiles to launch a nuclear weapon from a ship off the U.S. coast into the atmosphere where an explosion could shut off electricity for months through an atmospheric EMP explosion.

In an Air Force briefing provided to the Examiner, the service raised concerns about “aging infrastructure,” a “growing number of cyber attacks” on the grid, “coordinated physical attacks on key grid components” and “risks from state and non-state actors,” presumably such as the Islamic State or North Korea.

"We have been warning Americans about this for months and now the U.S. Air Force has made a shocking warning about an area that we are extremely vulnerable…our energy grid. If even part of the U.S. energy grid were to go offline in a major city, it would be mass hysteria, because the attack would most likely mean Americans would be without power for weeks or even months depending on how severe the attack."

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