About this episode

The episode discusses the cybersecurity threats to the US power grid and features an interview with Patrick Miller, who provides insights on the current state of grid security and the risks posed by hackers.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.volts.wtf/subscribe Could the US grid be brought down by Chinese hackers? To find out, I talked with Patrick Miller, who helped write the cybersecurity rules for the bulk power system and became the first person with federal authority to enforce them. We get into what's actually been hacked, why those "rogue devices" in Chinese inverters are less sinister than they sound, and why squirrels still do more damage than hackers. Chapters: 00:00 – Introduction 02:47 – What state utility commissioners get wrong about cyber risk 04:50 – Real attacks on the grid so far: Ukraine, Poland, and the US 06:57 – IT versus OT, and why grid devices are hard to protect 10:30 – The NERC CIP standards: scope, requirements, enforcement 17:40 – Distributed resources outside the CIP perimeter 20:54 – Dropping the threshold to 20 MVA, and federal jurisdiction 29:12 – Chinese inverters and the commodity board 36:09 – Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, and China's intent 39:26 – Data centers as a new attack surface 43:19 – The trade-off between security and speed 47:44 – Cyber-informed…

People in this episode

Host: David Roberts

Guest: Patrick Miller

Topics covered

• grid cybersecurity
• cyber risk
• power system
• Chinese hackers
• real attacks
• NERC CIP standards
• physical threats

Keywords

• cybersecurity
• US grid
• Chinese hackers
• NERC CIP
• cyber risk
• physical threats
• Volt Typhoon
• Salt Typhoon

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NERC, CISA, CIRCIA

Products: Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon

Places: Ukraine, Poland, US, China

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