DHS

The Trump administration has proposed new drone regulations that will eliminate case-by-case approval processes for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)  operations, while Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy confirmed accelerated plans to deploy a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Transportation (DOT), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and […]

A Goldman Sachs private equity business is taking a stake in critical industry cybersecurity firm Fortress Information Security. The $125 million investment underscores a heightened awareness of supply chain vulnerabilities within the investor community. Fortress, which announced the investment from Goldman Sachs Asset Management Private Equity on April 19, said it also highlights a wider […]

The power and energy sector is one of the most critical areas of our country’s infrastructure, making it a prime target for cybercriminals increasingly looking for ways to infiltrate and disrupt the sector and ultimately the national grid. In fact, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in early 2021 that found the […]

The Biden administration is moving to add more safeguards to the nation’s critical infrastructure by establishing a new voluntary public-private collaboration that will focus wholly on industrial control systems (ICS) cybersecurity. The administration formally launched the “Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative” in the “National Security Memorandum on Improving Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Control Systems” signed by […]

Marking another major federal effort to address potential supply chain risks to the bulk power system (BPS), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Sept. 17 sought industry’s perspective on a number of important considerations, including possible actions the regulatory body could take to address security gaps. The U.S.-based power sector, meanwhile, has moved quickly […]

As part of POWER magazine’s in-depth coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, its editors are curating a list of resources that may provide actionable information helpful to anyone involved in the world’s vast bulk power systems. Please write to editor@powermag.com if you know of additional resources that should be added to this page.  POWER Magazine’s Live […]

The U.S. power sector is rallying together to implore state and local governments to treat sector-wide “mission-essential employees” with higher priority and ensure they have top-level access to testing and personal protective equipment (PPE) amid the intensifying COVID-19 pandemic. In a four-page April 2 white paper presumably addressing federal leadership, the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council […]

Drones represent a classic good news/bad news scenario. The good news is great. The bad news is terrifying. On the good news front, drones can keep utility-sector workers safely on the ground, with the

Depending on the hazard field, electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) resulting from detonation of a nuclear weapon at high altitude or in space could cause significant damage to electronics on the bulk power system and even prompt a regional voltage collapse, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) says in much-anticipated findings from its three-year study on high-altitude […]

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials in a July 24 webinar said that Russian hackers infiltrated a power plant industrial control system (ICS) in an incident that could have caused a blackout last year. However, as an industrial cybersecurity expert pointed out—and a DHS spokesperson confirmed—the impact of the incident may be overstated. The expert and DHS responded to a […]