Utilities are on alert after an incident in Ukraine in which hackers managed to cause a blackout, but there is currently no threat to the U.S. electric grid, says the nation’s grid watchdog.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, chartered by Congress to work with the Department of Energy to guard against power outages, says it has been tracking the situation in Ukraine and is working with a cadre of federal agencies to analyze any potential threat, a representative for the organization said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Initial reports on the Ukraine incident over the last 36 hours revealed that the country’s power grid was compromised by hackers that managed to take control of the electricity system via the Internet, using malicious software, or malware. The result was a Dec. 23 power outage that caused 700,000 homes to lose power for several hours. Analysts say the event was a landmark in demonstrating the ability of hackers to infiltrate and significantly wound a country’s electric grid.
Experts have indicated that the same malware was used in attacks against U.S. facilities from 2011 to 2014. U.S. intelligence officials are examining whether Russia was responsible for the Ukraine attack.
NERC spokeswoman Kimberly Mielcarek said there “is no credible evidence that the incident could affect North American grid operations and no plans to modify existing regulations or guidance based on this incident.”
U.S utilities “have been kept informed about the technical aspects of the incident, including the sharing of technical indicators of compromise, via a … secure portal” the federal government has created under a public-private partnership with the utility sector called the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, she wrote in an email.
She said security and resiliency is a top priority for mantaining the North American power system.
Investigators include the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, according to unnamed officials cited by the Daily Beast.
