Category Archives: electrical grid

Electric grid hacking exercise reveals shortfalls of security clearance shortage

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As foreign hackers continue to probe the U.S. grid for weaknesses, a cyber exercise for the North American energy sector has shown that many utility personnel still lack access to the classified information needed to stay on top of the threat. Not enough utility employees had the clearances needed to share threat information for a serious cyberattack scenario rehearsed during the exercise, according to a report published Friday by regulator North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC). “Government should plan to quickly declassify information that utilities need to prevent or respond to attacks,” the report states. During the two-day exercise, which took place in November, government officials and utility executives worked together to respond to simulated “cyber and physical attacks” against control systems and generation and transmission facilities “that caused widespread and prolonged power outages,” the report notes. Energy industry officials have long urged the U.S. government to expedite the clearance […]

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Identity Documents Exposed in FedEx-Owned Amazon S3 Bucket

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More than 119,000 scanned identity documents, including passports and drivers’ licenses, belonging to people from the United States and abroad were exposed in an insecure Amazon S3 storage bucket. The storage bucket belonged to a company called B… Continue reading Identity Documents Exposed in FedEx-Owned Amazon S3 Bucket→

Flame Throwing Drone is Actually Useful

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A team in Xiangyang, China is using a flame-throwing drone to clear debris from high voltage power lines. These lines are made of metal of course, and are impervious to the high heat of the flames. Any type debris that gets on the lines will be charred to a cinder in just a few seconds. This is all is quite a bit safer than sending a human with some type stick up there near the high voltage lines.

Over the years here at Hackaday, we’ve seen people attach some strange things to drones. We can all recall the drone with …read more

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Earth Ground And The Grid

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The electrical grid transmits power over wires to our houses, and our Bryan Cockfield has covered it very well in his Electrical Grid Demystified series, but what part does the earth ground play? It’s commonly known to be used for safety, but did you know that in some cases it’s also used for power transmission?

Typical House Grounding System

A pretty typical diagram for the grounding system for a house is shown here, along with a few of the current carrying conductors commonly called live and neutral. On the far left is the transformer outside the house and on the …read more

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Electric power industry puts cybersecurity to forefront with Trump, lawmakers

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Electric power industry executives are pushing to have their cybersecurity concerns heard by Congress and the Trump administration. A Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Tuesday — convened to discuss how the government can better coordinate with the private sector on power grid security, incident response and other cyber threat information sharing efforts — is the latest example for how the industry is reaching out to Washington. Last week, electric power company and trade group representatives also met with top administration officials, including Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Jeanette Manfra, the acting deputy undersecretary for the Homeland Security Department’s cyber division, Politico first reported. The group spoke about relevant, shared security goals and priorities, and where the government can offer assistance. Energy companies face substantial risks in cyberspace, experts say, and threats can directly affect physical systems and human life. John DiStasio, President of the Large Public Power Council, told lawmakers Tuesday that because […]

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Electric power industry puts cybersecurity to forefront with Trump, lawmakers

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Electric power industry executives are pushing to have their cybersecurity concerns heard by Congress and the Trump administration. A Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Tuesday — convened to discuss how the government can better coordinate with the private sector on power grid security, incident response and other cyber threat information sharing efforts — is the latest example for how the industry is reaching out to Washington. Last week, electric power company and trade group representatives also met with top administration officials, including Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Jeanette Manfra, the acting deputy undersecretary for the Homeland Security Department’s cyber division, Politico first reported. The group spoke about relevant, shared security goals and priorities, and where the government can offer assistance. Energy companies face substantial risks in cyberspace, experts say, and threats can directly affect physical systems and human life. John DiStasio, President of the Large Public Power Council, told lawmakers Tuesday that because […]

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DOE tries to spur development of defenses against Ukraine-style electrical grid cyberattack

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The Department of Energy doled out $4 million in grant funding earlier this month to four different cybersecurity firms in an effort to spur the development of new technology that can help protect U.S. electricity delivery systems from hackers. The move comes just three months after a complex cyberattack aimed at Ukrainian energy company Ukrenergo […]

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Tesla Vs. Edison

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The phrase “Tesla vs. Edison” conjures up images of battling titans, mad scientists, from a bygone age. We can easily picture the two of them facing off, backed by glowing corona with lightning bolts emitting from their hands. The reality is a little different though. Their main point of contention was Tesla’s passion for AC vs. Edison’s drive to create DC power systems to power his lights. Their personalities also differed in many ways, the most relevant one here being their vastly different approaches to research. Here, then, is the story of their rivalry.

Tesla’s Passion For AC

Nikola Tesla’s …read more

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The Electrical Grid Demystified

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Our society needs energy, and lots of it. If you’re reading this then the odds are astronomically good that you’re on a computer somewhere using energy, with the power cord plugged into the mysterious “black box” that is the electrical grid. The same is true if you’re reading this on a laptop or phone, which was charged from said black box even though it may not be connected at this moment. No matter where you are, you’re connected to some sort of energy source almost all the time. For almost every one of us, we have power lines leading up …read more

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