The Hail Mary Plan to Restart a Hacked US Electric Grid

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.wired.com/story/black-start-power-grid-darpa-plum-island/

By Lily Hay Newman
Wired.com
11.14.18

IN HIS YEARS-LONG career developing software for power grids, Stan McHann 
had never before heard the ominous noise that rang out last Wednesday. 
Standing in the middle of a utility command center, he flinched as a 
cyberattack tripped the breakers in all seven of the grid's low voltage 
substations, plunging the system into darkness. "I heard all the 
substations trip off and it was just like bam bam bam bam bam bam bam 
bam," McHann says. "The power’s out. All you can do is say, OK, we have to 
start from scratch bringing the power back up. You just take a deep breath 
and dig in."

Thankfully, what McHann experienced wasn't the first-ever blackout caused 
by a cyberattack in the United States. Instead, it was part of a live, 
week-long federal research exercise in which more than 100 grid and 
cybersecurity experts worked to restore power to an isolated, custom-built 
test grid.

In doing so they faced not just blackout conditions and rough weather, but 
also a group of fellow researchers throwing a steady barrage of 
cyberattacks their way, hoping to stymie their progress just as a real 
enemy might.

[...]

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