Congress Alarmed At Cyber-Vulnerability Of Power Grid

[Juha-Matti Laurio <juha-matti.laurio () netti fi>]

> From Forbes.com:

".....
I think we could search far and wide and not find a more disorganized response to a national security issue of this 
import," said Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity and Science 
and Technology.
He pointed a finger to several groups: the DHS for giving scanty details of its video-taped simulation; the power 
industry for working too slowly to mitigate the threat; and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, an 
industry group, for failing in its role as the self-regulatory body assigned to ensure a consistent national power 
supply.
"Everything about the way this vulnerability was handled … leaves me with little confidence that we're ready or willing 
to deal with the cyber security threat," he said.

The House's criticisms focused primarily on the electric utility industry group, NERC. They argued that the advisories 
issued by NERC are ineffective and that it has repeatedly misled the House in its investigation of the Aurora 
vulnerability."
--clip--

More at
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/05/22/cyberwar-breach-government-tech-security_cx_ag_0521cyber.html

And CNN's Study finds TVA vulnerable to hacking:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/21/cyber.attack/
 
"The Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to almost 9 million Americans, "has not fully implemented 
appropriate security practices to protect the control systems used to operate its critical infrastructures," leaving 
them "vulnerable to disruption," the Government Accountability Office found."
--clip--

There are many readers (including me) happy now about living outside of US...

Juha-Matti

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