U.S. government efforts to force more wind and solar power onto the electrical grid is making America much more vulnerable to hacking, according to a study published Thursday by The Manhattan Institute.
The study found that making the power grid networked enough to handle the intermittent and unreliable nature of solar and wind power inherently makes it more vulnerable to cyberattacks. These attacks have risen 60 percent annually for the last six years, and utilities are increasingly targeted by both malicious hackers and other countries.
The study also concluded that the amount of money the government invested in securing the power grid is trivial compared to the enormous amounts of funding intended to promote and subsidize green energy. Even highly secure electrical infrastructure, like that of the Department of Defense, is incredibly vulnerable to cyberattack, according to a study by the Government Accountability Office. Worst case scenario cyberattacks could cost America $250 billion to $1 trillion, according to a 2015 study by Lloyds Bank.
The danger of massive attacks on the power grid organized by a hostile country isn’t theoretical either. Ukraine’s power grid was subject to a serious cyber attacked linked to Russia last December. The incident successfully knocked the power grid offline, leaving approximately 700,000 homes without power for several hours and damaged physical infrastructure.
The attack was probably caused by a well-engineered malware called BlackEnergy, which disconnected electrical substations from the main power grid. A similar malware was used against Ukrainian media organizations during the 2015 local elections. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security twice warned American utilities about the type of malware in December 2014 and again in June 2015.
American utilities, which are relatively well-defended compared to Ukraine’s, reported 13 different cyber break-ins between 2011 and 2014. A single minute of grid downtime in the U.S. can cost up to $15,447, according to analysis.
A Freedom of Information Act request revealed hackers successfully infiltrated the Department of Energy’s (DOE) computer system 159 times between 2010 and 2014. The DOE was targeted 1,131 times over the same period. The National Nuclear Security Administration, a sub-agency within the DOE that secures the country’s nuclear weapons, was hit with 19 successful cyberattacks over those four years.
Infecting industrial systems such as power grids with malware is so simple there are even five-minute YouTube tutorials on how to do it.
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