December 19, 2015 ·
www.fortunascorner.com
Ellie Zolfagharifard writes on the December 18, 2015 edition of London’s The Daily Mail Online, that the Pentagon’s research entity — the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), is launching an effort to mitigate the consequences of a devastating cyber attack against America’s power grid. “Dubbed the Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation, and Characterization (RADICS), its goal is to develop automated systems,” to deal with a massive power outage Ms. Zolfaghariford. As conceived, these new systems would help engineers restore power nationwide within seven days, she added.
“If a well-coordinated cyber attack on the nation’s power grid were to occur today, the time it would take to restore power would pose daunting national security challenges,” said John Everett, DARPA Program Manager. “Beyond the severe domestic impacts, including human and economic costs, prolonged disruption of the grid would hamper military mobilization and logistics, impairing the government’s ability to project force, or pursue solutions to international crises.”
“An early warning capability for power suppliers could prevent an attack entirely, or blunt its effects,’ Ms. Ziolfagharifard writes. “One of the aims of RADICS is to develop detection systems with high sensitivity, and low false positive rates, by studying the dynamics of our power grid infrastructure. RADICS also calls for the design of a secure emergency network that could connect power suppliers in the moments after an attack.” “Isolating affected utilities from the Internet would enable recovery efforts to proceed without adversary surveillance and interference,” Everett said. “Providing alternative means for online coordination would enable a more orderly restoration of power among affected organizations. Finally, the RADICS will research systems that can localize, and characterize malicious software. The greatest risk is a catastrophic attack on the energy infrastructure. We are not prepared for that,” said General (Ret.) Keith Alexander, former Director of the National Agency (NSA), and U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM).
Gen. Alexander, in a speech earlier this year, “envisioned a worst-case scenario, where hackers targeted oil refineries, power stations, and the electrical grid. The payments nexus of the major banks could also be paralyzed,” he warned. “We need something like an integrated air-defense system for the whole energy sector,” General Alexander contends.
The Islamic State Is Almost Certainly Evaluating A Major Cyber Attack On U.S. Critical Infrastructure
Gen. Alexander’s concern and warning isn’t new. The fear of a catastrophic attack on our critical national infrastructure has been a concern for over two decades. But, the rise of the Islamic State, and their recruitment of individuals with savvy cyber skills — has raised the prospects that America could suffer a cyber attack of mass disruption. “This is definitely a threat to the U.S. government, and other western governments, but also to our industrial control systems — the ones that run our manufacturing plants, moving energy across the country — that have vulnerabilities,” said Bob Gourley, the former Chief Technology Officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency, in an interview with VOA News.
So, the cyber threat to our power grid and critical national infrastructure is real and growing. This effort by DARPA is a welcome development; but, it is late in the game. The adversary gets a vote. Let’s hope that the RADICS initiative will bear fruit; and, moves along quicker than expected. That said, playing defense in this domain is practically a ‘fools errand,’ when facing a sophisticated, determined adversary. While it is extremely important to take prudent steps to ‘harden’ one’s IT/ network enterprise, we also need to figure out what offensive measures — cyber and otherwise — we need to be ready to take, both preemptively, and in retaliation, should this threat manifest itself to the stage of an imminent attack.
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