Friday, August 10, 2018

Prevent Hacking the US Electric Grid

Been a lotta talk about this, in the Journal, on the internet, on TV.   It works like this.  Lots of stuff, generators, transformer banks, substations, and more are remote controlled.  It saves money by eliminating expensive workers at each site.  The remote controllers will accept remote commands such as "Start Up", "Shut Down", "Increase Voltage", "Change Transformer Taps", "Speed Up", and many more.
   The cheapest communication link is the public internet, it's practically free. And the public switched telephone network is nearly as cheap although slower.  Trouble is, when you set all your generators and other equipment to accept commands from the public internet, that means every hacker in the world can send commands to your equipment.  There are some codes and addresses and computerish languages to learn but it isn't all that hard.
   The solution is to prohibit use of the public internet by the utilities.  These are power companies, they own power poles, they have line men, and  they can jolly well string fiber optic control lines on their own poles out to all their remote equipment.   Hackers don't climb poles, to tap fiber optic lines.  In addition to the hackers reluctance to leave their warm and cozy computer rooms, fiber is tough to tap.  You have to cut the glass fiber, insert an adder, bring your own fiber line all the way from your own computer, and then splice the two cut ends and your new line into the adder.  Splicing fiber can be done but it's hard, few techs know how.  A bad splice will block the light signal.
  The various public utility commissions, all 50 states and the feds,  need to post regulations prohibiting any kind of remote control over the public internet or the telephone network and demand private fiber optic control lines owned by the utility company.  This will hackers from ordering all the generators in the country to shut down some dark and snowy night.  

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