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Biden administration releases 100-day plan to address electric system…

The plan focuses largely on supply chain risks to the electric grid, requests input on the DOE’s role in coordinating cybersecurity efforts.

On April 20, the Biden administration, through the United States Department of Energy (DOE), issued what it is calling its 100-day plan to address cybersecurity risks to the US electric system. The plan is a coordinated effort among DOE, the electricity industry, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). It “represents swift, aggressive actions to confront cyber threats from adversaries who seek to compromise critical systems that are essential to US national and economic security,” according to the announcement.

The idea is that DOE’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), working with utilities, will “continue to advance technologies and systems that will provide cyber visibility, detection, and response capabilities for industrial control systems of electric utilities.” To achieve this goal, the efforts undertaken in this “sprint” focus on encouraging power grid players to:

  1. Implement measures or technology that enhance their detection, mitigation and forensic capabilities.
  2. Deploy technologies that enable near real-time situational awareness and response capabilities in the critical industrial control system (ICS) and operational technology (OT) networks.
  3. Enhance the security posture of their IT networks.
  4. Deploy technologies to increase the visibility of threats in ICS and OT systems.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

 

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FEATURE – The Mysterious Case of the Missing 250-Ton…

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In May, the Trump administration seized a $3 million transformer on its way to Colorado. What happened to it, and where is it now?
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In May, the Trump administration seized a 250-ton, $3 million Chinese high-voltage transformer that was on its way to Colorado. It was taken to Sandia National Labs in New Mexico for reasons unknown. What happened to it still remains a mystery.

On May 1, the Trump Administration issued a surprise Executive Order (EO), “Securing the United States Bulk Power System.” The directive aims to keep critical equipment supplied by foreign adversaries out of the nation’s power grid due to supposed supply chain security threats. It requires the Secretary of Energy to work with other agencies in identifying the specific equipment from adversarial suppliers, particularly Chinese suppliers, that the government should bar from the bulk-power system.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has to issue relevant rules on the matter within 150 days, or by September 28. Shortly after the EO’s release came the surprising revelation that a federally owned utility managed by DOE, the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), hijacked a nearly $3 million Chinese-manufactured transformer initially intended for one of its substations in Colorado. WAPA instead diverted it to one of DOE’s national laboratories, Sandia National Labs, in New Mexico.

The manufacturer of the high-voltage 500,000-pound transformer was Chinese company JiangSu HuaPeng Transformer Co., Ltd., or JSHP, which shipped the transformer from Shanghai to the Port of Houston in August 2019.JSHP’s North American representative Jim Cai told Motherboard his company planned to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars to transport the high-grade steel using a particular kind of railroad car to WAPA’s Ault substation in Colorado, where JSHP would then install it. Like all electric substations, the Ault facility’s main purpose is to “step down” high-voltage electricity, typically above 1,000 volts, to lower, more manageable levels that can be distributed safely to homes and businesses.

Before the ship docked in Texas, WAPA told JSHP to cancel its plans to transport and install the transformer and to forget about selling a warranty on the equipment, which is almost always mandatory for highly specialized, expensive electrical system equipment. The utility then transported the transformer itself to Sandia. Since then, WAPA and DOE have been silent on this odd development, which has sparked confusion and concerns among utilities and industrial control system (ICS) security specialists.

This article appeared in Vice News. To read the rest of the article please visit here.

Photo by ETA+ on Unsplash

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New DOE document names China, Russia as threats to…

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A US Department of Energy RFI seeks information on energy industry’s supply chain security practices following executive order to develop industry regulations.
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On May 1, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order on Securing the United States Bulk Power System that seeks to remove from the power grid crucial electric equipment supplied by vendors from foreign adversarial nations. Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Electricity issued a request for information (RFI) “seeking information to understand the energy industry’s current practices to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in the supply chain for components of the bulk-power system (BPS).”

The RFI is a follow-on to the executive order (EO), which directs the Energy Department, in consultation with other agencies, to develop regulations implementing its goals through a rulemaking process. The EO defines electric equipment as items used in substations, control rooms and power generating stations, including reactors, capacitors, substation transformers, large generators, voltage regulators, along with several other defined pieces of electrical equipment.

This article appeared in CSO Online. To read the rest of the article please visit here.