The Still-Untold Story of Electric Grid Insecurity
It’s a story that has everything, except a reporter ready to tell it. A hostile state attacking the US power grid is a longstanding and quite plausible national security concern. The Trump administration was galvanized by the threat, even seizing Chinese power equipment when it arrived in the US to do a detailed breakdown of the gear and then issuing an executive order and follow-up rulings designed to cut Chinese products out of the US grid supply chain.
Yet now the Biden administration has suspended this order for 90 days – the only Trump cybersecurity order to be called into question so far. Industry lobbying? Chinese maneuvering? Tech uncertainty? No one knows, but Brian Egan and I sketch the outlines of an irresistible story that will surely reward a persistent journalist.
The SolarWinds story, meanwhile, needs a new moniker, as the compromises spread beyond SolarWinds distributions, reaching victims like Malwarebytes. Increasingly, it looks as though Microsoft and its cloud are the common denominators, Sultan Meghji and I observe, but that’s one moniker the story will never acquire.
In other cyber TTP news, the Chinese are stealing airline passenger reservation data, Sultan notes. Maybe they’re just trying to find out when Mike Pompeo next plans to come to China so they can meet him at the airport and enforce their latest sanctions – no Great Wall tours for you, Mr. Secretary!
This is our last week of Trumpian cyber news, so we wallow in it. President Trump also issued a last-minute order calling for an assessment of the security risks of Chinese drones, Maury Shenk tells us. And Brian unpacks the oth
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