Washington, DC: In the aftermath of the devastating attacks on Sony Pictures computers, there is a heightened recognition that other information technology systems may be at risk of what President Obama last week depicted as “cyber vandalism.” Others call it an act of war in the new domain known as the cyberbattlespace.
Increasingly,
national leaders are recognizing
that one of the prime targets for such attacks in the future may be the control
systems of the U.S. electric bulk power distribution system, better known as
the electrical grid. The salience of those concerns has only been
intensified by today’s news that computers have been hacked at the company that
runs South Korea’s nuclear power plants. A report from
Reuters
quotes a South Korean specialist in nuclear designs, South Korea University’s
Su Kune-yull, as saying: “This demonstrated that, if anyone is intent with
malice to infiltrate the system, it would be impossible to say with confidence
that such an effort would be blocked completely. And a compromise of nuclear
reactors' safety pretty clearly means there is a gaping hole in national
security.”
The Secure
the Grid Coalition – a group of American national security practitioners,
scientists and engineers co-chaired by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
and former Clinton Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey –
has long believed that the vulnerabilities of the U.S. grid pose an existential
threat to the United States. That is a finding
confirmed by no fewer than eleven different studies performed or
commissioned by the federal government over the past decade.
Unfortunately,
cyber attacks are not the only manner in which large regions of the country
could be subjected to disruption or destruction of the electric grid.
These include: physical sabotage of the kind seen notably at the PG&E
Metcalf Substation outside of San Jose, California on April 16, 2013; the
danger of strategic electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strikes involving the
detonation of one or more nuclear weapons high above the United States; the use
of radio frequency weapons (RFW) to do locally what an EMP would do over large
areas, weapons that can be built using readily available hardware or adapted
from commercial technology; and naturally occurring intense geomagnetic
disturbances (GMD) that produce potentially devastating electromagnetic solar
storms.
In connection
with the last of these threats, NASA marked last July the second anniversary of
a very close call: A so-called Carrington-class GMD missed the earth by one
week in the summer of 2012. The NASA press release noted that the
probability of such an event hitting us in the next decade was twelve
percent.
One of the
preeminent leaders in Congress championing corrective measures to protect the
nation’s grid against EMP and these other hazards is Rep. Trent Franks
(R-AZ). He appeared today on Secure Freedom Radio, a syndicated talk
radio program sponsored by the Center for Security Policy, which also hosts the
Secure the Grid Coalition. Congressman Franks’ call-to-arms could not be
more clear:
There is a
moment in the life of nearly every problem when it is big enough to be seen by
reasonable people and still small enough to be successfully addressed. Those of
us across America live in a time when there still maybe opportunity for the
free world to address and mitigate the danger that naturally occurring or
weaponized EMP represents to the mechanisms of our civilization. This is our
moment.
*Frank J.
Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy, added:
The
vulnerability of America’s electric grid is a ticking time-bomb. Our
government knows that, if that vulnerability is exploited by enemies or
afflicted by space weather, we could experience the end of our nation as we
know it. Many of our foes are aware both of the grid’s susceptibility to attack
and the potentially catastrophic consequences for this country and its people
should it happen.
Only the
public is still largely in the dark about these dangers. If something is
not done promptly to rectify this situation, our countrymen and women risk
being kept in the dark permanently. We must secure the grid now.
An important
step in that direction was the unanimous adoption by the House of
Representatives late in the lame duck session of legislation lead-sponsored by
Rep. Franks: The Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (H.R. 3410).
It would require that: electromagnetic pulse threats – both man-induced and
naturally occurring) become the subject of a national planning scenario;
research and development into the techniques needed to protect the grid; and a
plan to be drafted and presented to Congress for achieving that
protection.
Unfortunately,
the Senate did not consider this legislation before it recessed, meaning both
houses will need to take it up afresh in 2015. There is, however, an
evident determination on the part of both the chairmen of the House and Senate
Homeland Security Committees, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Sen. Ron Johnson
(R-WI), respectively, to do just that early on. The Secure the Grid Coalition
stands ready to support that effort.
Secure the
Grid Coalition members are available for comment on the electric grid’s
susceptibility to cyber warfare and other threats – and what needs to be done
to protect it against all hazards. More information can be found at www.securethegrid.com.
**About the
Center for Security Policy
The Center
for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security
organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource
needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are
the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by
recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the
general public. For more information visit www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org