The US electricity grid is increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks, a senior US energy official told Semafor. As the grid expands to keep up with the AI race, “you have a growing surface of attack on which our adversaries can target us,” said Alexander Fitzsimmons, the Acting Undersecretary of Energy. “The threat landscape is certainly escalating and intensifying.”
So far, the US has managed to avoid a large-scale breach of the grid by hackers, thanks to proactive efforts by utilities and government agencies to thwart intrusions. But what’s more concerning, Fitzsimmons said, is the likelihood that hackers have already penetrated the IT networks of critical infrastructure and are simply lying in wait “to hold it at risk for a time and place of their choosing.” Fitzsimmons said he’s particularly concerned about grids that serve key military installations within the US, which in some cases are managed by small municipal utilities in rural areas “where you have one person working on IT, and they’re expected to secure their network against foreign adversaries.” The Department of Energy is working to share more threat intelligence with utilities and help them test out grid hardware for security weaknesses, he said, as well as coordinating with allies on the issue.