Word: cyberattackers
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...national power grid anywhere in the world has been brought down by a cyberattack. And it's worth keeping in mind that most countries have much fewer defenses from cyberattacks than the U.S. "It's virtually impossible to bring down the entire North American grid," says Major General (Rtd) Dale Meyerrose, a cybersecurity expert who recently retired as chief information officer for the Director of National Intelligence. The electricity-distribution system is highly decentralized, and there's no central control system; at worst, cyberattackers may be able to damage sections of the grid...
...most critical power users - the military, hospitals, the banking system, phone networks, Google's server farms - have multiple contingencies for uninterrupted power supply and backup generation. In the event of a cyberattack on the grid, they would be able to operate for long periods - days, weeks and, in some cases, indefinitely - without much difficulty...
...course, every power outage comes with a cost, not least to the economy. Mansoor would not discuss how long it would take to recover from a cyberattack - there are too many variables involved - but said the longest delays in restoring power are typically caused not by technological glitches but by major acts of God, like hurricanes and earthquakes that destroy physical infrastructure. (Read a TIME blog on China and hacking...
...This is not to suggest that the power grid can't be hacked into. In 2007, CNN reported that researchers working for the Department of Energy had mounted an experimental cyberattack against a power generator and were able to get it to self-destruct. Details of the experiment were kept from the public at the request of the Department of Homeland Security...
...report had said there was not a single credible terrorism threat, domestic or foreign, to the Inauguration. That covered the whole gamut of threats, from a cyberattack on sensitive computers to the use of weapons of mass destruction. Top officials have echoed these findings. "I don't anticipate anything disruptive," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told CNN. But, he added, "part of my job is to hope for the best but plan for the worst...